YoNAH Encounter

Peter Stevick, University of Southern Maine

The Years of the North Atlantic Humpback whale (YoNAH) is the broadest-ranging, most intensive study ever undertaken of a marine mammal species. Standardized sampling protocols were used in all areas to minimizes biases due to sampling. The YoNAH project collected photographs of individually distinctive natural markings, genetic samples and behaviour data on humpback whales in the North Atlantic Ocean. Field work began in January 1992 with a large-scale study of humpbacks in their principal West Indies breeding range at Silver Bank, Navidad Bank and Samana Bay, Dominican Republic; and Mona Passage, Puerto Rico. During summer, sampling was conducted in all the known major North Atlantic feeding grounds: the Gulf of Maine, Gulf of St. Lawrence, Newfoundland, Labrador, southwestern Greenland, Iceland, and Norway. In 1993 the same schedule of field work was repeated.

The YoNAH project is a unique research program utilizing photo-identification techniques and molecular genetics to conduct an intensive survey of the population ecology of humpack whales throughout their known North Atlantic range. This internationally collaborative project involves scientists from seven nations. YoNAH's vast database supports a wide range of scientific investigations and also provides reliable, detailed information on which to base management policy. Archives of photographs, tissue samples and data will provide a valuable legacy for future research.

[2015-03-24] A sighting record at 1993-02-07 10:45:00 had a wrong animal count of zero. The value is replaced with a blank representing species presence only. The notes for this sighting mentions "NO GROUP SIZE ESTIMATE".

A sighting record at 1992-08-04 15:00:00 had a wrong animal count of zero. The value is replaced with "1" that is an average of min and max counts, 0 and 2 respectively.

Data collection and analyses were conducted by reserach groups familiar with the study sites and with a history in use of these techniques for the study of humpback whale ecology. Allied Whale is responsible for photographic analysis and for database management. All the 5,500 photographs have been compared to one another to identify re-sightings. The accompanying databases are receiving final corrections and revisions. There are five datasets from YoNAH, including this one.
Behavior of whales were recorded in some surveys.
Biopsy samples and photographs were taken if possible.
Ships efforts and sightings of species other than humpback whales are recorded in the Effort dataset.
Those datasets can be linked with LINKKEY field.


For those records having null starttime but non-null endtime, endtime was added to date the date/time of the observation.

Overview

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

Attributes in dataset

Attribute (table column)	Description
dataset	Always
lineno	definition not provided
recno	definition not provided
date	Date of the sighting
vesselid	Vessel ID
cruise	Crouse No
encounter	Encounter ID
linkkey	Link key
group_	Group ID
min	Minimum number of group size
max	Maximum number of group size
starttime	Start time
endtime	End time
latdd	Latitude in decimal degree
longdd	Longitude in decimal degree
locsource	Location source
protocol	Protocol
class	definition not provided
mc	definition not provided
certainty	definition not provided
was	definition not provided
becomes	definition not provided
notes	definition not provided
surveyarea	definition not provided
excluded	definition not provided
behavcount	definition not provided
photocount	Number of photos taken
biopsycnt	Number of biopsy taken
species	Species name
tsn	Taxonomic Serial Number by ITIS
geom	definition not provided
oid	definition not provided
tprecision	Accuracy of the date/time.