IMMRAC marine mammal sightings from the Mediterranean's Levantine Basin
Israel Marine Mammal Research and Assistance Center (IMMRAC)

Nir Hadar, Oz Goffman, Aviad Scheinin and Dani Kerem, Israel Marine Mammal Research and Assistance Center (IMMRAC)

IMMRAC is a purely voluntary registered nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation of cetacean populations in the Eastern Mediterranean and in the noethern Red Sea, through scientific research and public education. IMMRAC is a partner of ACCOBAMS. Research activities are under the academic auspices of the Institute for Maritime Studies in the University of Haifa. Open Sea research focuses on the socio-ecology of the resident bottlenose dolphin population through half-day surveys from inflatable boats and private yachts. Research activity along the 190 km-long Israeli Mediterranean coast is conducted throughout the year, weather permitting.

IMMRAC collates shore-based and boat-based cetacean sightings, the latter from dedicated surveys as well as from platforms of opportunity, made by its own staff or reported to it by other parties. The latter are mostly backed by photographs or else, are indisputably accredited through careful interrogation by IMMRAC experts in real time and/or soon after the sighting, aided by a pictorial guide.

Some records had estimates, minimums, or ranges for group sizes - these were converted to numbers, minimum + 1, or the median number (rounded down), respectively, for the number of animals observed.

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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
oid	Unique ID (generated by SEAMAP)
spcode	Species Code
sp_obs	Species observed
sp_tsn	Species ITIS TSN
obs_date	Date of observation
obs_time	Time of observation
latitude	Latitude of observation
longitude	Longitude of observation
obs_count	Count of observation
groupsize	Estimated group size
calvespres	Number of calves present
seastate	Sea state
comments	Comments
notes	Notes on how the count of observations were derived from estimated group size