Virginia Aquarium Marine Mammal Strandings 1988-2008
Virginia Aquarium Stranding Response Program

Virginia Aquarium Stranding Response Program

Virginia receives 100-140 marine mammal strandings per year and the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center (VAQS) is the sole response and rehabilitation facility in the state. VAQS records basic (level A) data, for all marine mammals, as well as more in depth (level B and C) data whenever possible. The OBIS dataset contains the basic level A data for all stranded marine mammals, responded to by VAQS, and spans the years of 1988-2008.

These data can be used to report the presence and seasonality of marine mammal species when survey data are lacking. Absence of a species from the dataset does not, however, indicate absence from the area as stranding data are opportunistic data that require detection of a mortality on a coastline. Those data points located in a water body indicate that the animal was first seen floating. Human interaction (HI) data are included as part of the level A dataset but must be analyzed carefully as 'YES' for HI does not necessarily indicate that the stranding or the death of an animal was caused by human activity.

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Overview

Attributes described below represent those in the original dataset provided by the provider.
Only minimum required attributes are visible and downlodable online. Other attributes may be obtained upon provider's permission unless otherwise noteded below.

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 in dataset provided

Attribute (table column)	Description
id	Row ID assigned by OBIS-SEAMAP
common	Species common name
field_id	FIELD #
obs_date	date
scientific	Scientific name.
sp_tsn	ITIS taxonomic serial number. This field added by OBIS-SEAMAP
obs_count	animal count. Always 1. Added by OBIS-SEAMAP.
agency	Agency
st	State
city	City/county
locality	Locality
lat	Latitude in decimal degree
long	Longitude in decimal degree
hi	Human Interaction
con	Condition Code
initial_n
final_n
sex	Sex
length
e_length	Estimated length
wght	Weight
p
init_disp
final_disp	Final carcass disposition
oid	Unique ID number (generated by SEAMAP)