Population status of small cetaceans off Aragua, Central Coast of Venezuela 2009

Jaime Bolaños-Jiménez

Since 2001, the non governmental organization Sea Vida has been promoting responsible dolphin watching in the State of Aragua, on the basis of previous research efforts by the Venezuelan Ministry of Environment and Sea Vida. Attempts have been made to gather baseline information on the bio-ecological and population aspects of cetaceans in the region. Opportunistic and systematic surveys have confirmed the presence of the Atlantic spotted (Stenella frontalis) and bottlenose (Tursiops truncatus) dolphins. Encounter rate with dolphin groups is about 70%. Preliminary results indicate that at least a proportion of the population is resident to the area, with recaptures ranging from a few days to at least 12 years.

This project is aimed to evaluate the population status of dolphins inhabiting the coast off the State of Aragua using photo-identification techniques, as part of the efforts to promote responsible dolphin watching in the region.


Similar surveys will be made during 2009 to cover different sampling seasons.

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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.
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
row_id	sighting index. sightings with duplicate ids were observed at the same time (different species).
obs_date	date of observation
obs_time	time of observation (start sighting)
obs_time_end	End of sighting
obs_minutes	Duration of sighting in minutes
latitude	Latitude in decimal degrees
longitude	Longitude in decimal degrees
sp_obs	Species observed
sp_tsn	ITIS taxonomic serial number. This field added by OBIS-SEAMAP
obs_count	Number of animals
calf_young	Percentage of calf/young
behave_t	Initial behavior: traveling
behave_s	Initial behavior: socializing
behave_r	Initial behavior: resting
behave_f	Initial behavior: feeding
behave_m	Initial behavior: milling
behave_u	Initial behavior: unknown
react_ap	Reaction: approach
react_av	Reaction: avoidance
react_ne	Reaction: neutral
react_bwr	Reaction: bowriding
geom	definition not provided
oid	Unique ID number (generated by SEAMAP)