Elephant Seal Sightings, Macquarie Island

OBIS and OBIS Secretariat

At Macquarie Island 1000 seals were weighed per annum between 1993-2003 at birth and individually marked with two plastic flipper tags in the inter-digital webbing of their hind flippers. These tagged seals were weighed again at weaning, when length, girth, fat depth, and flipper measurements were made. Three weeks after weaning 2000 seals were permanently and individually marked by hot-iron branding. Recaptures and re-weighing of these known aged individuals were used to calculate growth and age-specific survival of the seals.
Similar data were collected from elephant seals between 1950 and 1965 when seals were individually marked by hot-iron branding. Mark-recapture data from these cohorts were used to assess the demography of the declining population. Length and mass data were also collected for these cohorts and were used, for the first time, to assess the growth of individual seals without killing them.

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/267a89f6-e30c-4394-8253-5f4630b24a4a
Data Provider's dataset page:
http://ipt.obis.org/nonode/resource?r=ellie_sightings_macca

The dataset has been updated over time as outlined below. Each entry includes the version number, release date, type of change, and a short description.

Overview

Attributes are defined by OBIS.

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	Sex 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)
obs_datetime
tprecision
on_land
date_in_future