AMAPPS Northeast Shipboard Cruise Summer 2016

NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC)

During 27 June–25 August 2016, the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) conducted a shipboard abundance survey targeting marine mammals, sea turtles and seabirds on the NOAA ship Henry B. Bigelow. The survey area was between 36 and 42N and 65 and 74W, covering waters offshore of the 100m depth contour. There were 2 independent teams targeting marine mammals and sea turtles using line transect sampling techniques, a team targeting targeting sea birds using strip transect sampling techniques, a team monitoring a towed hydrophone array, and a team collecting physical and biological oceanographic data. Track lines were covered at about 10 knots. In Beaufort sea states of six and less, about 5354 km of on-effort track lines were surveyed. Over 1200 groups (16,000 individuals) of cetaceans, 26 groups (27 individuals) of sea turtles and 1977 groups (4677 individuals) of seabirds were recorded.

The main objectives of the survey were: 1) determine the distribution and abundance of cetaceans, sea turtles and sea birds within the study area; 2) collect vocalizations of cetaceans using passive acoustic arrays; 3) determine the distribution and relative abundance of plankton and other trophic levels, 4) collect hydrographic and meteorological data, and 5) when possible, collect biopsy samples and photo-identification pictures of cetaceans.

[2022-10-14] The species for the record on 2016-06-30 (group size 160) was corrected from unidentified spotted dolphin to the spinner dolphin.

Perpendicular distance to the animal is not publicly available. Please contact the data provider
to obtain this attribute.

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	Unique ID number (generated by OBIS-SEAMAP)
tripid	Trip ID
platformvlts	Always B (Shipboard)
oneffort	Flag (Y/N) to indicate on effort.
speciescode	Species code by provider
comname	Common name
kingdom	Kingdom
phylum	Phylum
class	Class
order_sci	Order
family	Family
scientificname	Scientific name
references_	References
observationheight	Altitude of aircraft in feet above sea level
platformspeed	Speed of the platform at the time of the sighting in knots
higherinstitutioncode	Higher institution code "DOC:NOAA:NEFSC"
institutioncode	Institution code "NEFSC"
ownerinstitutioncode	Instituion who owns the data "NEFSC"
basisofrecord	Basis of record "HumanObservation"
recordtype	Record type "VLTS" (visual line transect survey)
sightid	Sight ID
individualcount	Individual count
latitude	Latitude in decimal degrees
typevlts	Always "F"
longitude	Longitude in decimal degrees
perpendiculardistance	Perpendicular distance to the animal
datasetid	Dataset ID
datasetname	Dataset name
eventdate	Date and time of the sigthing at local time
eventdatetimezone	The time zone of the observation event
time	Date and time of the sighting in UTC
effortid	Effort ID
cue	The sighting cue that initially drew the observers attention
behavior	Behavior
geom	Geometry field added by OBIS-SEAMAP