Bryde’s whales off eastern Venezuela - Aerial 1978-1979

Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, San Diego, California.

Systematic surveys, conducted between 28 October 1978 and 13 November 1979 in the waters adjacent to Puerto la Cruz and Isla Margarita, Venezuela, documented the presence, distribution and habits of a population of Bryde's whales. Methods included aerial and boat surveys, interviews with local fishermen, and radio-tagging. Bryde's whales, apparently attracted by the abundance of food, were observed in the area between March and December; numbers were greatest in fall. Distribution within the study area varied with season: between march and August the whales were seen in the eastern part; from August to December in the western. Herd size increased from march through October. Although several cow and calf pairs were seen, breeding activities were not, and there is no evidence that this is a breeding area.

Surveys were supported by the local company Turismo Margarita S.A., to better understand the causes of collisions between passenger jet hydrofoils and large marine animals, and advise on procedures to minimize such risk.

An accompanying vessel survey dataset Bryde's whales off eastern Venezuela - Vessel 1978-1979 is available.

The provider digitized the locations from the literature.

The accuracy of the dates is year. Months and days are approximate.

No time is provided. Substituted with 00:00:00.

No group size is provided. Substituted with 1.

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
record_id	progressive number
database	data credits
project	Turismo Margarita Project (TMP)
obs_date	Approximation of date: +/- 1,5 months based on information contained in Notarbartolo di Sciara 1983.
obs_year	Year of the observation
obs_time	Approximation of local time: +/- 7 hours based on information contained in Notarbartolo di Sciara 1983.
latitude	Latitude in decimal degrees
longitude	Longitude in decimal degrees
sp_obs	Species name
sp_tsn	Taxonomic Serial Number added by OBIS-SEAMAP
obs_count	group size = 1, to avoid overestimates, based on information contained in Notarbartolo di Sciara 1983.
platform
geom