Atlantic grey seal breeding colonies in Hay and Saddle Islands, Nova Scotia

Duke Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing Lab

Dataset credit

Duke Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing Lab

Contacts

RoleNameOrganization 
Primary contact Alexander Seymour Duke University Marine Lab
Data entry Ei Fujioka Duke University

Citation

Seymour, A., Dale, J., Hammill, M., Halpin, P and Johnston, D. 2017. Automated detection and enumeration of marine wildlife using unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and thermal imagery. Scientific Reports. 7: 45127.

Abstract

These RGB mosaics and thermal indices of Atlantic grey seal colonies at Hay and Saddle Island, Nova Scotia, were collected by small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). The mosaics and thermal indices were assessed by human analysts, who counted the seals in the mosaic and classified individuals as 'young of the year' or 'adult'. Concurrently, an automated detection and classification model was applied to the datasets and compared to human counts.

Purpose

These datasets were used to assess Atlantic grey seal populations and to compare and test wildlife survey methods.

Supplemental information

The downloadable shapefile includes TIFF images of RGB mosaics and thermal indices. The size of the zipped file is 1GB and may take a long time to download.

Within the dowloaded file, the 'Analysis Materials' folders contain point shapefiles of the seals counted and classified by human analysts. In addition, the folders contain the landscape masks that were applied to the thermal indices before running the automated detection models.

References

Seymour, A., Dale, J., Hammill, M., Halpin, P and Johnston, D. 2017. Automated detection and enumeration of marine wildlife using unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and thermal imagery. Scientific Reports. 7: 45127.

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.
Only minimum required attributes are visible and downloadable online. Other attributes may be obtained upon provider's permission.

Attributes in dataset

Attribute (table column)Description
oidUnique ID number (generated by OBIS-SEAMAP)
fidInternal Field ID
locationLocation name
obs_dateDate of the sighting
obs_timeTime of the observation is not available
xx coordinate
yy coordinate
seriesTag ID
life_stageLife stage (adult or juvenile)
longitudeLongitude in decimal degrees
latitudeLatitude in decimal degrees
speciesSpecies name recorded
sp_tsnTaxonomic Serial Number added by OBIS-SEAMAP
obs_countGroup size (always 1)
geomGeometry field added by OBIS-SEAMAP
OBIS-SEAMAP ID1462
Seabirds0
Marine mammals3,355
Sea turtles0
Rays and sharks0
Other species0
Non spatial0
Non species0
Total3,355
Date, Begin2015-01-30
Date, End2015-02-02
Temporal prec.111111
Latitude45.81 - 46.02
Longitude-63.25 - -59.68
Coord. prec.6 decimal digits
PlatformPlane
Data typeAnimal sighting
EffortN/A
Traveled (km)0
0
Contr. through
Registered2017-02-14
Updated2017-02-20
StatusPublished
Sharing policy CC-BY-NC (Minimum)
Shared with OBIS
GBIF (via DOI)
See metadata in static HTML
See metadata in FGDC XML
See download history / statistics