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SCANS I cetacean sightings 1994
Citation
Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU) SMRU Small Cetacean Abundance in the North Sea (SCANS), 1994. In: OBIS-SEAMAP . OBIS-SEAMAP, http://seamap.env.duke.edu/, 2004-05-07 10:26:49.566991-04, vector digital data. https://marineinfo.org/id/dataset/1990
Contact: Hammond, Philip

Access data
Archived data
Availability: Creative Commons License This dataset is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Description
Point file data on all sighting events and associated parameters and data from the survey. more

The Small Cetacean Abundance in the North Sea (SCANS) project was initiated in 1993. Dedicated line transect shipboard surveys were conducted between 27 June and 26 July 1994. Transects covered 20,000km2 in an area of 890,000km2. The survey area included the region specified in the Agreement on Small Cetaceans Of the Baltic And North Seas (ASCOBANS) (excluding most of the Baltic Sea proper) and the Celtic Sea. The shipboard methodology involved simultaneous survey from two independent observation platforms, one of which searched farther ahead of the vessel than the other. There were two observation platforms on each of the nine vessels participating in the SCANS project. Three species dominate the dataset; the harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena), white-beaked dolphin (Lagenorhynchus albirostris) and minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata). The dataset is a point file containing information on all sighting events from each platform on each vessel during survey effort. The effort file contains the start and end positions for each leg of survey effort for each vessel and associated parameters. The data have been extracted from the Joint Cetacean Database. The status of small cetaceans, particularly the harbour porpoise, in the North Sea and adjacent waters was of considerable concern due to substantial incidental bycatch in fishing operations, declines in the number of stranding records and incidental sightings in coastal waters and from the possible risk of contaminants and pollution. The objective of SCANS was to provide essential information for conservation, management and future monitoring of small cetaceans by i) identifying concentrations of P. phocoena and other small cetaceans and ii) generating precise and unbiased abundance estimates.

Scope
Themes:
Biology > Mammals
Keywords:
Marine/Coastal, Marine mammals, ship, surface vessel, ANE, Baltic, ANE, Celtic Sea, ANE, North Sea, Cetacea

Geographical coverage
ANE, Baltic [Marine Regions]
ANE, Celtic Sea [Marine Regions]
ANE, North Sea [Marine Regions]

Temporal coverage
27 June 1994 - 25 July 1994

Taxonomic coverage
Cetacea [WoRMS]

Contributors
University of St Andrews; Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU), moredata owner
Hammond, Philip

Related datasets
Published in:
EurOBIS: European Ocean Biodiversity Information System, more
OBIS-SEAMAP: Spatial Ecological Analysis of Megavertebrate Populations, more
Other relation:
SCANS II: Small Cetaceans in the European Atlantic and North Sea (SCANS II) - 2005, more

Publication
Describing this dataset
Hammond, P.S. et al. (2002). Abundance of harbour porpoise and other cetaceans in the North Sea and adjacent waters. J. Appl. Ecol. 39: 361-376

Dataset status: Completed
Data type: Data
Data origin: Research: field survey
Metadatarecord created: 2009-06-09
Information last updated: 2022-08-16
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