BOEM Sperm Whale Seismic Study (SWSS) PhotoID 2002-2005

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

This dataset includes PhotoID data in SWSS surveys from 2002-2005. Sperm whale visual trackings and sightings of other cetaceans are avainable in several SWSS datasets.

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
id	Row ID in the original table
originator	Survey name
originatorid	Dolphin ID assigned in each survey
datetimegmt	Date and time in GMT
obs_datetime	Date and time (local time zone)
latitude	Latitude in decimal degrees
longitude	Longitude in decimal degrees
series	Dolphin ID assigned by OBIS-SEAMAP (Same as whale_id)
whale_id	Whale ID (long term ID)
whale_name	Whale name
sp_obs	Species name recorded
sp_tsn	Taxonomic Serial Number added by OBIS-SEAMAP
obs_count	Animal count (always 1)
callus	Callus
age_class	Coded age class
gender	Gender
markedness	Markedness
estimatedposition	Estimated position
trackperiod	Track period
filename	Image file name
isactualimage	Indicate if the associated image was taken on the same date as the record
resources
osu_id	OSU ID
dtag_id	DTag ID
nmfs_id	NMFS ID
gcet_id	GCET ID
ppt	PPT#
biopsy	Biospy notes
biopsyid	Biopsy ID
biopsy_no	Biopsy No.
confidence	Confidence
comments1	Comments
notes	Notes