Cetacean sightings in the north western Mediterranean Sea by EcoOcéan Institute and partners 1994-2011

EcoOcéan Institut and partners (SCS, Cybelle Planète, Participe Futur, EPHE, WWF-France, FNH)

EcoOcéan Institut is a non-governmental organization with professional researchers working in the north-western Mediterranean Sea on cetaceans, turtles and seabirds since 1994. Campaigns at sea are dedicated to data collection (marine animals, maritime traffic, marine debris) and the research methods used are mainly "line transect" and "photo-identification."

EcoOcéan Institut contributes to the growing knowledge on vertebrates at sea aiming for their protection. We work on subjects like ecology, distribution, and monitoring the impact of human activities (bycatch, ship strike, disturbance by leisure vessels).

EcoOcéan Institut works with several marine protected area managers at a local, national or international level (i.e., French Marine Parks, French Ministry of the Environment, Pelagos Sanctuary, ACCOBAMS, and RAC/SPA).

Each year, EcoOcéan Institut produces colleagues and young "eco-guides" and works with the concept of citizen science or "eco-volunteer" through its partners: Swiss Cetacean Society, Cybelle Planète, and Participe Futur. Also, we work in collaboration with several institutions and other researchers such as WWF-France, Fondation Nicolas Hulot, ISPRA, Cima Foundation, IFREMER, and Observatoire PELAGIS-CRMM. We participate actively at capacity building (concerning research methodologies on cetaceans) in the Mediterranean area (France, Marocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Lebanon).

EcoOcéan Institut is one of the founders of the French GIS3M (Groupement of scientific interest for the marine mammals of the Mediterranean Sea and their environment).

Currently, only cetacean sightings have been included in OBIS-SEAMAP, but the full dataset includes seabirds, sea turtles and sunfish, along with the effort tracks.

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)
owner	Owner of the data
provider	Provider
latitude	Latitude in decimal degrees
lat_dir	Always N
longitude	Longitude in decimal degrees
long_dir	Always E
day	Day
month	Month
year	Year
obs_date	Date of the sighting
local_time	Time of the sighting in original string
obs_time	Time of the sighting (local time zone)
sp_obs	Species name recorded (usually scientific name)
common_name	Species common name recorded
sp_tsn	Taxonomic Serial Number added by OBIS-SEAMAP
obs_count	Group size
geom	Geometry field added by OBIS-SEAMAP