Mingan Island Cetacean Study 84-07

Richard Sears, Mingan Island Cetacean Study

Dataset credit

Richard Sears, Mingan Island Cetacean Study

Contacts

RoleNameOrganization 
Primary contact Julien Delarue Allied Whale, College of the Atlantic
Data entry Ei Fujioka Duke University

Citation

Abstract

The sightings contained in this dataset were obtained during surveys designed to photo-identify blue whales in the Sea of Cortez during their peak abundance in February and March. The surveys were conducted between 1984 and 2007 from 25' fiberglass boats in sea state less than 3-4 and designed to maximize the number of blue whale IDs. Although focusing primarily on the areas where blue whales are most commonly sighted, they also covered most of the area accessible by boat during a day trip at least once per field season.

Any marine mammal sighting was recorded using cross-bearings from 1984 to 1991 and using GPS from 1992 on. Unusual bird and fish sightings were also recorded.

Purpose

N/A

Supplemental information

[2015-03-24] A few records had a wrong animal count of zero. The value is replaced with a blank representing species presence only.

[2014-04-16] Species identification of Kogia simus (ITIS TSN: 612590) was corrected to Kogia sima (180492). There were 10 sightings of this species.

The sightings of Balaenoptera edeni were recognized as Bryde's whale by the data provider. The ITIS taxonomy database gives it the common name of Eden's whale. Thus, in our system it shows Eden's whale instead of Bryde's whale as a common name.

There may seem to be duplicated records in the dataset. However, records are different, near-by sightings (within 100-200 m) recorded while the researchers were conducting photo-ID activities and for which an exact position could not be obtained. Thus, their positions were approximated as that of the animal/group the researchers were working with at that time.

The records without coordinates were removed.

References

Attributes

Overview

This section explains attributes included in the original dataset. OBIS-SEAMAP restricts the attributes available to the public to date/time, lat/lon and species names/counts only. Should you need other attributes described here, you are encouraged to contact the data provider.

Attributes described below represent those in the original dataset provided by the provider.
All attributes are included in the downloadable file (CSV or ESRI File Geodatabase) for "Complete Set of Dataset".

Attributes in dataset

Attribute (table column)Description
sight_idGenerated by OBIS-SEAMAP to distinguish records
obs_dateObserved date
obs_timeObserved time
latitudeLatitude in decimal degrees
longitudeLongitude in decimal degrees
obs_countNumber of animals in a group
sp_obsSpecies codes
sp_scientificScientific name
sp_commonCommon name
sp_tsnTaxonomic Serial Number added by OBIS-SEAMAP
geomGeometry field added by OBIS-SEAMAP
oidUnique ID number (generated by SEAMAP)
OBIS-SEAMAP ID460
Seabirds21
Marine mammals4,839
Sea turtles8
Rays and sharks32
Other species4
Non spatial0
Non species0
Total4,904
Date, Begin1984-03-24
Date, End2007-03-26
Temporal prec.111111
Latitude22.91 - 26.92
Longitude-112.35 - -106.49
Coord. prec.6 decimal digits
PlatformBoat
Data typeAnimal sighting
EffortN/A
Traveled (km)0
0
Contr. through
Registered2008-09-16
Updated2014-04-16
StatusPublished
Sharing policy CC-BY (All)
Shared with OBIS
GBIF (via DOI)
See metadata in static HTML
See metadata in FGDC XML
See download history / statistics