Sargasso sperm whales 2004

Hal Whitehead, Department of Biology, Dalhousie University

The Sargasso Sea cruise surveyed marine birds and mammals in the northeast Atlantic Ocean, during the summer of 2004. This survey, onboard the Valiant 40 ocean-going research vessel Balaena, consisted of two survey legs: a sail from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Beaufort, North Carolina (May 5 - 27), and a round trip from Beaufort, North Carolina to offshore waters north of the Bahamas (June 2 - 22). Sperm whales were surveyed during both legs by members of the Hal Whitehead laboratory.

The purpose of this cruise was to study the behavior (principally social organization), ecology, and population biology of sperm whales.

This dataset includes sperm whale sightings and survey effort. The effort data include sightings during surveys (on effort) and during focal follows of sperm whale schools (off effort). The survey track was recorded by logging a position every 10 minutes using the vessel's GPS.

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 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
id
month
day
year
hours
minutes
species
latitude
longitude
sighting_type
geom
oid	Unique ID number (generated by SEAMAP)