BOEM Sperm Whale Seismic Study (SWSS) S-Tag sperm whale trackings 2002-2004

Texas A&M University
Oregon State University
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Texas A&M University-Galveston
University of Colorado
University of Durham
University of Saint Andrews
University of South Florida
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Sperm Whale Seismic Study (SWSS) was a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary research project supported by the then Minerals Management Service (MMS; now Bureau of Ocean Energy Management - BOEM) under Cooperative Agreement 1435-01-02-CA-85186 for Cooperative Research on Sperm Whales and their Response to Seismic Exploration in the Gulf of Mexico through the Texas A&M Research Foundation.

The objectives of SWSS were to
(1) establish baseline information on the biology and behavior of sperm whales in the northern Gulf of Mexico,
(2) characterize sperm whale habitat use in the northern Gulf of Mexico, and
(3) determine possible changes in behavior of sperm whales when subjected to manmade noise, particularly from seismic airgun arrays used for offshore oil and gas exploration and geological monitoring.

N/A

2015-11-17: Two records having a negative number of the animal count (2002-07-06 21:16:34 and 2003-07-07 15:04:46) were fixed to positive numbers.

This dataset includes sperm whale visual tracking data in 2002-2004. Sightings of other cetaceans are found in BOEM Sperm Whale Seismic Study (SWSS) S-Tag cetacean sightings 2002-2004

Since the vessels often tracked the sighted sperm whales for further surveys, many sightings in this dataset represent the same animals.

Since the 2005 data are in a different format, they are registered separately as BOEM Sperm Whale Seismic Study (SWSS) S-Tag cetacean sightings 2005

Effort data were filtered to eliminate early morning and night times where no visual efforts were conducted. The of-effort times are different in years.
2002: 06:30 - 19:30 CDT
2003 SH: 05:50 - 19:30 CDT
2003 STag: 06:30 - 20:30 CDT
2004: 07:00 – 20:00 CDT

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 number (generated by OBIS-SEAMAP)
row_id	Row ID assigned by OBIS-SEAMAP
index	Index of rows in the original data table
gpsindex	Foreign key to GPS data
obs_datetime	Date and time (local time zone)
other_time	Other format of time
num	definition not provided
link	definition not provided
reallink	definition not provided
regular	definition not provided
what	What to track (SP: sperm whale; ST: tagges whale
whale_activity	Whale activity
sp_obs	Species code recorded
sp_tsn	ITIS Taxonomic Serial Number assigned by OBIS-SEAMAP
obs_count	Number of individuals (total of adults, juveniles and calves)
adults	Number of adults
calves	Number of calves
whaleheadingtrue	Whale heading
usedbearingtrue	Bearing
calcrangem	definition not provided
notes	Notes
end_ships_heading	Ship heading at end
ships_heading	Ship heading
actualheadt	Actual heading
actualbeart	Actual bearing
ship_heading	Ship heading
bearing	Bearing (°)
distance	Distance
range	Range
whaleheadingrel	whale heading
latitude	Latitude in decimal degrees
longitude	Longitude in decimal degrees
lat_animal	Latitude of animals
lon_animal	Longitude of animals
geom	Geometry field added by OBIS-SEAMAP