Sightings of southern right whales around mainland New Zealand 1976-2002

OBIS and SWP OBIS

The status of southern right whales around ‘mainland’ New Zealand was assessed by reviewing 110 sightings and 23 individual photo-identifications collected between 1976 and 2002. Sightings were reported in 11 of the 12 Conservancies (Department of Conservation administrative areas) with coastal waters. Southland Conservancy was the primary area visited by non-cow/calf whales and Hawke's Bay Conservancy represented the primary area for cow/calf pairs. Whales were sighted in all seasons with the majority of sightings reported in winter (60%) and spring (22%). Between 1988 and 2001 (when whales were consistently sighted), southern right whales showed a significant increase in number of sightings and number of whales per sighting. The estimated rate of increase is imprecise and likely affected by uneven sighting effort over the years. Despite this apparent increase in overall sightings, there was little evidence of increase in the number of cow/calf pairs sighted around New Zealand’s three main islands (‘the mainland’). No matches were made between 26 photo-identified whales from around the mainland and the extensive catalogue of whales photo-identified in the subantarctic islands. The former population remains severely depleted, and likely contains between 4 and 11reproductive females. The lack of evidence of movement between the mainland and the subantarctic islands and the marked difference in recovery between the two areas suggests that the two populations represent separate stock.

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/fdde5055-44f4-4066-83b6-4c2b00080eaa
Data Provider's dataset page:
https://nzobisipt.niwa.co.nz/resource?r=southernrightwhales_nz

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)