SEUS Right Whale EWS Aerial Surveys 2016-17

Occurrence Observation
Latest version published by OBIS-SEAMAP on Oct 8, 2025 OBIS-SEAMAP

Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:

Data as a DwC-A file download 1,012 records in English (104 KB) - Update frequency: not planned
Metadata as an EML file download in English (19 KB)
Metadata as an RTF file download in English (13 KB)

Description

Original provider: Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute Dataset credits: NOAA Fisheries, Southeast Regional Office Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Fish and Wildlife Research Institute Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute Funding for surveys provided by: NOAA Fisheries, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Georgia Department of Natural Resources Abstract: Right whale Early Warning System (EWS) aerial surveys are conducted during winter in the southeastern United States (SEUS). Surveys in this dataset began in 2016/2017 and were flown by Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) and Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute (CMARI, formerly Sea to Shore Alliance). FWC surveys were conducted in a Cessna 337 Skymaster aircraft with 2 observers (1 of which was also the data recorder); CMARI surveys were typically conducted in a NOAA Twin Otter aircraft with 2 observers plus 1 dedicated data recorder. Target altitude was 1,000 ft, and target speed was 100 kts. Only large whales, large sharks, and leatherback turtles were consistently recorded by both teams. Manatees, ocean sunfish, and manta rays were consistently recorded by FWC. All other species were recorded opportunistically. Surveys broke track to obtain exact locations for large whales; locations for other species typically represent the location along the survey transect.

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 1,013 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:

Gowan, T. and B. Zoodsma. 2019. SEUS Right Whale EWS Aerial Surveys 2016-17. Version 1.0.1. Dataset published in OBIS-SEAMAP. https://doi.org/10.82144/7f933b64.

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: 72d8d09f-b831-406c-ab20-2447a284fbd8.  OBIS-SEAMAP publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Ocean Biodiversity Information System.

Keywords

Occurrence; Observation; Marine Biology; Visual sighting; Marine Animal Survey; Marine mammals; Sea turtles; Visual Sighting; Aircraft; Occurrence

External data

The resource data is also available in other formats

OBIS-SEAMAP Dataset Page https://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/1990 UTF-8 Interactive map
FGDC Metadata https://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/1990/fgdc UTF-8 XML
EML Metadata https://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/1990/eml UTF-8 XML

Contacts

Timothy Gowan
  • Owner
  • Originator
  • Point Of Contact
  • Primary contact
Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute
Barb Zoodsma
  • Originator
  • Secondary contact
NOAA Southeast Regional Office
OBIS-SEAMAP
  • Metadata Provider
  • Distributor
Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab, Duke University
  • A328 LSRC building
27708 Durham
NC
US

Geographic Coverage

Oceans,North Atlantic

Bounding Coordinates South West [29.097, -81.461], North East [35.225, -75.431]

Taxonomic Coverage

Scientific names are based on the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS).

Superorder Euselachii
Order Cetacea (Cetaceans)
Family Molidae (trunkfishes)
Genus Isurus (makos), Sphyrna (Bonnethead sharks)
Species Carcharodon carcharias (Great white shark), Caretta caretta (Loggerhead sea turtle), Cetorhinus maximus (Basking shark), Dermochelys coriacea (Leatherback sea turtle), Eubalaena glacialis (North Atlantic right whale), Lepidochelys kempii (Kemp's ridley), Manta birostris (Atlantic manta), Megaptera novaeangliae (Humpback whale), Rhincodon typus (Whale shark), Rhinoptera bonasus (Cownose ray), Stenella frontalis (Atlantic spotted dolphin), Trichechus manatus (West indian manatee), Tursiops truncatus (Common bottlenose dolphin)

Temporal Coverage

Start Date / End Date 2016-12-01 / 2017-03-29

Project Data

No Description available

Title SEUS Right Whale EWS Aerial Surveys 2016-17
Funding NA

The personnel involved in the project:

Timothy Gowan
  • Owner
Barb Zoodsma
  • Originator

Sampling Methods

NA

Study Extent NA

Method step description:

  1. NA

Collection Data

Collection Name zd_1990
Collection Identifier zd_1990
Parent Collection Identifier OBIS-SEAMAP

Bibliographic Citations

  1. Surrey-Marsden, C., C. Accardo, M. White, C. George, T. Gowan, P. Hamilton, K. Jackson, J. Jakush, T. Pitchford, C. Taylor, L. Ward, and B. Zoodsma. 2018. North Atlantic Right Whale Calving Area Surveys: 2016/2017 Results. U.S. Dept. of Commerce, NOAA. NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-SER-8, 16 p. https://doi.org/10.25923/ybgc-k086

Additional Metadata

marine, harvested by iOBIS. Survey data are split into three seasons (2016/17, 2017/18, and 2018/19). This is the 2016/17 season. The 2017/18 season is available at http://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/1992. The 2018/19 season is available at http://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/2004. Effort data are provided. The Trackline field (used to distinguish effort on a predetermined transect from verification surveys and transits) was recorded by observers during surveys. Additional information on species identification and taxonomic resolution may be available in the Notes and Photos fields.