Adriatic Shipping Company marine mammal sightings in the Adriatic Sea 1988-2000

Luca Giovagnoli, CetaceanSound.org

Research on marine mammals was conducted in 1988-2006 and sightings were collected from each ferry on the Adriatic Sea. The lines included: Italy, Yugoslavia, Albania, and Greece. We had 175 sightings in 12 years. For each sighting, we collected: date, time, weather condition, sea position, numbers of animals, kind of animals, depth and so on.
This research was conducted to observe and study the biological competition between humans and dolphins (both of them are catching blue fish). All of the data collected was used for my thesis degree at Parma University - Vet Medicine.

My whole career has been based on the study of cetaceans and how they are used to communicate. I’ve been studying their language and their ways of hunting and feeding. I started in 1988 with the first Italian work about cetaceans’ distribution in all of the Adriatic Sea. I studied the biological competition between humans and dolphins. Then in 1990, I began studying indigenous populations in the Adriatic Sea. With the group of Electonics directed by Eng. Massimo Azzali (I.R.Pe. M. CNR – Ancona), we worked out many theses about sounds and ultrasound in dolphins’ communication. In particular, we studied the system to prevent dolphins from ending up in fishing nets and the way they have to communicate between different groups. I carried out many research studies in Italy and many European countries, as well as the United States. My interest has been focused in the study of wild and domestic animals, whether by applying conventional veterinary medicine or the homeopathic and natural approach. I decided to create the Organization called Cetaceansound.Org, because I really trust in the opportunity to save dolphins and creatures from the ocean. I’ll keep on working in this field because they represent our future.

Data provided to OBIS-SEAMAP are from 1988-2000 and other years of data from this project are currently being worked on.
Erroneous points (i.e., on land or otherwise) were excluded.
2013-10-31: data were updated to include reformatted time

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
oid	Unique ID (created by OBIS-SEAMAP)
recnum	Record number
intcode	Internal Code
ship	Ship
origindate	Original month and day information
obs_date	Date of observation
originyear	Original year information
year	Year
origintime	Original time information
obs_time	Time (reformatted as hh:mm:ss)
latitude	Latitude of observation
longitude	Longitude of observation
x
y
distcoast	Distance from the coast
depth	Depth
spcode	Species code
obs_count	Number of animals
sp_obs	Species observed
posadrsea	Position in the Adriatic Sea
sp_tsn	Species ITIS TSN
geom