Strandings along Romanian Black Sea coasts since 2010

Mare Nostrum NGO, National Institute for Marine Research and Development
"Grigore Antipa"

In the Black Sea, the cetaceans are represented by three species, Phocoena phocoena relicta, Tursiops truncatus ponticus and Delphinus delphis ponticus. The main threat and cause of decline for the Black Sea dolphins are the fishing nets, or bycatches.

For protection of the dolphin populations from Romanian Black Sea area in conformity with the objectives of the "National Action Plan for Conservation of Dolphins" and "Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and contiguous Atlantic
Area," with financial support from European Union through the Sectorial Operational Programme – Environment, the NGO "Mare Nostrum" started a series of activities in partnership with National Institute for Marine Research and Development "Grigore Antipa" Constanța, Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve Authority, National Agency for Fishing and
Aquaculture, Natural Science Museum Complex "Dolphinarium" Constanța, Border Police Inspectorate of Constanța County. From 2012, Mare Nostrum continued collecting data through inhouse funding or projects like the ones financed through the ACCOBAMS Secretariat fund or through a CSR private company. Latest project was ANEMONE project.
The present database presents the situation of dolphin strandings along the Romanian coast during 2010 and 2020. The data were collected from the entire Romanian coast, from Sulina to Vama Veche.

The purpose of this research was to create a National Stranded Cetacean DataBase through a continue monitoring of the strandings along the Romanian Black Sea coast.

The dataset is not available for download until the provider publishes the journal article on the data.

[UPDATE] 2018 data were added on 2021-02-16. The records for the species "NI" were previously not included in the dataset. These records are now registered as Cetacea and included in the dataset.

[UPDATE] 2021 data were added on 2021-02-07.
[UPDATE] 2020 data were added on 2021-03-01.
one of the strandings (a Tursiops) is near Cernavoda city on the Danube,
which was confirmed.

[UPDATE] 2019 data were added on 2020-01-22.
[UPDATE] 2017 data were added on 2018-02-28.
[UPDATE] Data in 2015 were added on 2016-03-04.
[UPDATE] Data in 2014 were added on 2015-01-23.
A few existing 2013 records got coordinates fixed.
The stranding in 2002 was fixed to 2012.

[UPDATE] Data in 2013 were added on 2014-02-20

Additional references:
Paiu, M., E. Anton and M. Candea. 2012. Observation on dolphin sightings
at the Romanian coast and measures to reduce accidental cathes in
fishing nets. Recherches Marines. nr. 42/149-158

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)
rec_id	Record ID per year
lat_lon_orig	Latitude and longitude originally provided
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	The number of animals caught
date_orig	Date in original format
obs_datetime	Date of the observation (time not provided)
notes	Notes
geom	Geometry field added by OBIS-SEAMAP