Description
Original provider: National Marine Mammal Laboratory Dataset credits: National Marine Mammal Laboratory Abstract: Visual line-transect surveys for cetaceans were conducted in the southeastern Bering Sea (SEBS) from 10 June to 3 July 2000, in association with a pollock stock assessment survey aboard the NOAA ship Miller Freeman. Observers scanned for cetaceans with 25x (Big Eye) binoculars from the flying bridge (platform height = 12 m) at survey speeds of 18.5-22 km h-1 (10-12 knots). Transect survey effort was 2,194 km in 2000, in a study area 158,561 km2. An additional 402 km of trackline was surveyed in 2000 while in transit to or from pollock survey way points. Fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) were the most common large whale, and Dall's porpoises (Phocoenoides dalli) were the most common small cetacean. In the SEBS 2000, uncorrected abundance estimates were: 683 (CV = 0.32) fin whales, 102 (CV = 0.50) humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae), 1,003 (CV = 0.26) minke whales, 9,807 (CV = 0.20) Dall's porpoise, and 1,958 (CV = 0.21) harbor porpoise. Non-pollock echosigns observed near cetaceans, some of which may have been cetacean prey, were not routinely identified during trawl sampling because the research focus was on pollock abundance assessment. Clearly, additional surveys and concomitant assessment of cetacean prey are needed to better define their role in the Bering Sea ecosystem. Such surveys, combined with measures of local hydrography and prey field should be the goal of future cetacean assessments. Purpose: Cetacean distribution and abundance in the Bering Sea is poorly described, with even recent reviews of cetaceans' role in the ecosystem reliant on data from the commercial whaling era. Commercial harvests of baleen whales (mysticetes) were extensive in the North Pacific and Bering Sea, especially between 1835 and 1850 for North Pacific right whales and between 1965 and 1979 for fin and humpback whales. The effect of these large-scale removals on the marine ecosystem is largely unknown. Similarly, some species of toothed whales (odontocetes) are sometimes killed in the course of commercial fishing operations. Pelagic dolphins and Dall's porpoise were especially vulnerable during high seas driftnet fishing in the North Pacific in the 1980s, and once again the long-term ramifications of these removals are unknown. One reason for this uncertainty is the lack of data on current cetacean distribution and estimates of abundance in pelagic environments. Surveys to determine distribution and abundance are costly and, therefore, often confined either to coastal waters where the logistics are most practical, or to areas of the ocean where marine mammal mortality associated with commercial fishing is particularly high. The pelagic waters of the Bering Sea have not met either criteria and so are comparatively undersampled for cetaceans. Cruises were undertaken in association with the Alaska Fisheries Science Center/Resource Assessment and Conservation Engineering (AFSC/RACE) division to conduct visual surveys for cetaceans during the semi-annual acoustic trawl surveys for walleye pollock (Theragra chalcogramma) on the Bering Sea shelf. Biologists from the AFSC/National Marine Mammal Laboratory (NMML) were able to join subsequent surveys in the southeastern Bering Sea (SEBS) in 2000, providing an opportunity to describe cetacean distribution and calculate abundance over a broad area of the Bering Sea shelf.
Data Records
The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 428 records.
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
How to cite
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Waite, J. 2006. NMML Bering Sea Cetacean Survey 2000. Data downloaded from OBIS-SEAMAP (http://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/122) on yyyy-mm-dd.
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is OBIS-SEAMAP. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC 4.0) License.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: eae32224-05a2-4e3c-90f8-77b1d22a850c. OBIS-SEAMAP publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Ocean Biodiversity Information System.
Keywords
Occurrence,survey,cetacean,walleye pollock,trawl. acoustic,Vessels,Sightings; Observation; Occurrence
External data
The resource data is also available in other formats
OBIS-SEAMAP Dataset Page | http://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/122 UTF-8 Interactive map |
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FGDC Metadata | http://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/122/xml UTF-8 XML |
Contacts
- Owner ●
- Originator ●
- Point Of Contact
- Metadata Provider ●
- Distributor
Geographic Coverage
southeastern Bering Sea,Bering Sea,Alaska
Bounding Coordinates | South West [54.187, -170.296], North East [58.592, -154.979] |
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Taxonomic Coverage
Scientific names are based on the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS).
Order | Cetacea (cetaceans), Cetacea (cetaceans), Cetacea (cetaceans), Cetacea (cetaceans) |
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Suborder | Caniformia (pinnipeds) |
Genus | Mesoplodon (beaked whales) |
Species | Balaenoptera acutorostrata (Minke Whale), Balaenoptera borealis (Sei Whale), Berardius bairdii (Baird's Beaked Whale), Balaenoptera physalus (Fin Whale), Callorhinus ursinus (Northern Fur Seal), Eumetopias jubatus (Steller Sea Lion), Enhydra lutris (Sea Otter), Eschrichtius robustus (Gray Whale), Lagenorhynchus obliquidens (Pacific White-sided Dolphin), Megaptera novaeangliae (Humpback Whale), Orcinus orca (Killer Whale), Odobenus rosmarus (Walrus), Phocoenoides dalli (Dall's Porpoise), Phocoena phocoena (Harbor Porpoise), Phoca vitulina (Harbor Seal) |
Temporal Coverage
Start Date / End Date | 2000-06-10 / 2000-07-02 |
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Project Data
No Description available
Title | NMML Bering Sea Cetacean Survey 2000 |
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Funding | NA |
The personnel involved in the project:
- Owner
Sampling Methods
NA
Study Extent | NA |
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Method step description:
- NA
Collection Data
Collection Name | zd_122 |
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Collection Identifier | zd_122 |
Parent Collection Identifier | OBIS-SEAMAP |
Additional Metadata
marine, harvested by iOBIS
Purpose | Cetacean distribution and abundance in the Bering Sea is poorly described, with even recent reviews of cetaceans' role in the ecosystem reliant on data from the commercial whaling era. Commercial harvests of baleen whales (mysticetes) were extensive in the North Pacific and Bering Sea, especially between 1835 and 1850 for North Pacific right whales and between 1965 and 1979 for fin and humpback whales. The effect of these large-scale removals on the marine ecosystem is largely unknown. Similarly, some species of toothed whales (odontocetes) are sometimes killed in the course of commercial fishing operations. Pelagic dolphins and Dall's porpoise were especially vulnerable during high seas driftnet fishing in the North Pacific in the 1980s, and once again the long-term ramifications of these removals are unknown. One reason for this uncertainty is the lack of data on current cetacean distribution and estimates of abundance in pelagic environments. Surveys to determine distribution and abundance are costly and, therefore, often confined either to coastal waters where the logistics are most practical, or to areas of the ocean where marine mammal mortality associated with commercial fishing is particularly high. The pelagic waters of the Bering Sea have not met either criteria and so are comparatively undersampled for cetaceans. Cruises were undertaken in association with the Alaska Fisheries Science Center/Resource Assessment and Conservation Engineering (AFSC/RACE) division to conduct visual surveys for cetaceans during the semi-annual acoustic trawl surveys for walleye pollock (Theragra chalcogramma) on the Bering Sea shelf. Biologists from the AFSC/National Marine Mammal Laboratory (NMML) were able to join subsequent surveys in the southeastern Bering Sea (SEBS) in 2000, providing an opportunity to describe cetacean distribution and calculate abundance over a broad area of the Bering Sea shelf. |
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Alternative Identifiers | http://ipt.env.duke.edu/resource?r=zd_122 |