Long-Distance Movement of a Sei Whale in the North Atlantic, 2005

Erik Olsen and Leif Nøttestad, Institute of Marine Research

Long-distance migration for most species of baleen whales is poorly understood because of the practical difficulties and substantial expense involved in gathering relevant data. Presently, satellite tracking is the only method that delivers the necessary detail and quantitative data on movement patterns on far-ranging marine mammals. In this study, ARGOS satellite tags were deployed on North Atlantic sei whales (Balaenoptera borealis) at the Azores Islands. Data from one whale showed a cumulative 4,102 km movement from tagging at Faial Island in the Azores on 12 April 2005 via the Charlie Gibbs Fracture Zone (CGFZ) to the Labrador Sea where transmissions stopped
on 7 June 2005. For a portion of the distance from CGFZ to the Labrador Sea, the whale moved in the prevailing direction of the surface current pattern.
Erratic movement in five areas along the
movement track indicates feeding behavior, particularly in the CGFZ. The results show the largescale movement potential of North Atlantic sei whales from wintering grounds to highly productive potential feeding areas in the Labrador Sea.

The purpose of this study was to track sei whales from winter grounds off the Azores to summer feeding grounds in the North Atlantic

All location classes are visualized.
There is a gap from location of tagging to first transmission.

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	Unique ID (created by OBIS-SEAMAP)
id	ID
series	Animal ID (PTT#)
tagging	Indicate the device deployment (1)
sp_obs	Species name
latitude	Latitude in decimal degrees
ns	North or south (always
longitude	Longitude in decimal degrees
ew	East or west (Always
class	Argos location class
obs_datetime	Date and time
julian_day	Julian Day
timet	TImeT
x	X (I)
y	Y (I)
hrs_diff	Hour difference
dist_nm	Distance in nm
speed_kn	Speed between consecutive positions in kts
speed_ms	Speed between consecutive positions in m/s
cumul_dist	Cumulative distance traveled
sp_tsn	ITIS Taxonomic Serial Number assigned by OBIS-SEAMAP
obs_count	Animal count (always 1)