Southern right whales wintering in the Auckland Islands, 1995-1998

OBIS and SWP OBIS

Historically, southern right whales were widely distributed in New Zealand waters. This population, was driven to commercial extinction following extensive exploitation during the early 19th century (Dawbin 1986). It was further depleted by illegal Soviet hunting in 1950-1970 (Tormosov et al. 1998). While right whale sightings around mainland New Zealand remain rare, up to 165 whales can be found at the Auckland Is in a single day during winter. Despite what appears to be adequate habitat along the eastern coastline, the whales' distribution is largely limited to Port Ross, Laurie Harbour and waters around Enderby I. The relatively small area where so many whales congregate means that at peak season the density of whales at the Auckland Is is very high (approximately 8 whales/km2). The residency period extends from at least early May to at least the end of September, with peak numbers in July and August.

N/A

This dataset was downloaded from OBIS (https://obis.org/). The records for only marine mammals, seabirds, sea turtles and rays and sharks were extracted. Records with no longitude/latitude or no date (eventDate) were excluded.
OBIS dataset page:
https://obis.org/dataset/32f5240a-6f3c-4462-b679-55fcac058e4c
Data Provider's dataset page:
https://nzobisipt.niwa.co.nz/resource?r=southernrightwhales_auck

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
oid	Internal ID
id	Record ID
dataset_id	Dataset ID
scientificname	Scientific name
vernacularname	Vernacular name
aphiaid	Aphia ID
taxonrank	taxononic rank
individualcount	Group size / individual count
eventdate	Event date (precision varies)
eventtime	Event time
decimallatitude	Latitude in decimal degrees
decimallongitude	Longitude in decimal degrees
coordinateprecision	Coordinate precision
catalognumber	Catalog number
collectioncode	Collection code
occurrencestatus	Occurrence status
basisofrecord	Basis of record (HumanObservation / MachineObservation)
modified	Date/time the record was modified
node_id	Node ID
occurrenceid	Occurrence ID
occurrenceremarks	Occurrence remarks
eventid	Event ID
institutioncode	Institution code
lifestage	Life stage
sex	Gender of the animal if known
species	Species by provider
datasetid	Dataset ID by provider
country	Country
locality	Location of ocean
waterbody	Details of ocean
dropped	Flag indicating the record was dropped (always false)
absence	Flag indicating the record represents the absence of the species (always false)
marine	Flag indicating the record is for marine life (always true)