Tracking Ocean Wanders (PDF, 5 MB) - BirdLife International

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Tracking ocean wanderers: the global distribution of albatrosses and petrels
ANNEX 8 MARINE MAMMAL TRACKING DATABASE
Project Title: A Database For The Study Of Marine
Mammal Behaviour: A Tool To Define Their Critical
Habitat And Behaviour
Principal Investigators: Drs. Daniel P. Costa
and Scott A. Shaffer
Background
In recent years, the US Navy has come under pressure to
evaluate the effects of its fleet activities on marine
organisms, particularly marine mammals. Consequently, the
Office of Naval Research created a program called Effects
of Sound on the Marine Environment (ESME) to evaluate
and model the influence of sound propagation on marine
mammal species. As part of this effort, it was important to
survey the scientific literature to collate information from
all studies that focused on diving behaviour and/or tracking
of free-ranging marine mammals. The data compiled from
this survey were placed into a database that was used to
model the impact and response of marine mammals to
various sound fields.
Our long-term goal was to compile a comprehensive
database that could be used alone or in combination with
other disciplines (e.g., oceanography, fisheries science, etc.)
to develop predictive models for defining the critical habitat
of marine mammals. The first goal was to compile a
bibliography of all published research on diving behaviour
and movement patterns of marine mammals. The second
goal was to create a database, which incorporated all data
from the publications. The third goal was to identify and
catalogue where available, unpublished data with respect to
species, investigator, data type, and their potential
availability. The fourth goal was to host a workshop with all
major investigators from the international community to
discuss the possibility of creating a common data-reporting
scheme for diving behaviour and movement patterns of
marine mammals.
Our search for published papers, reports, book chapters,
and books totalled to 448 references (413 references on
diving behaviour and 35 on movement patterns). The
bibliography contained references dating back to the 1960s
to Nov 2002. The data from all available publications were
extracted and entered into a Microsoft Access 2000
database. The specific diving behaviours of marine
mammals included such parameters as the diving depth,
duration, surface time, and diving frequency. We also
incorporated the metadata that included details about the
animals studied such as species, age, sex, reproductive
season, and number of individuals tracked, etc. Lastly, the
database included parameters about the locations of
animals (e.g., hemisphere, major ocean basins, oceanic
zones) and the type of equipment used to monitor diving
and movement patterns. The database has 1,815 entries (i.e.
single animals) comprised of 24 pinniped and 16 cetacean
species, plus the dugong and sea otter. The majority of
species are from high latitudes (67%), and the greatest
representation is from pinnipeds (1,560 entries), of which,
Antarctic fur seals (288 entries), Weddell seals (258 entries),
and harbour seals (247 entries) comprise the majority of
entries. For cetaceans, there are only 241 entries of which,
the majority are from harbour porpoises (42 entries) and
white whales (49 entries).
In December 2001, we held a workshop that focused on
the feasibility, development, and implementation of a
common approach to archive diving and tracking data of
marine mammals. This included discussions focused on
specific issues such as data formats, standards, metadata,
and the potential for a central or common access archive.
The workshop was a similar effort to that of the
Procellariiform Tracking workshop and it included a total
of 45 researchers from five countries including the U.S.,
Canada, Scotland, Australia, and Japan. Among all the
participants, there was unanimous support for standardising
the way data are reported in publications. Everyone felt this
would make it easier to compare data collected by various
groups. Concerning the creation of a central data archive,
participants of the workshop were unanimously supportive
but it was suggested that a Metadata archive be created
initially. This Metadata archive would only contain
information about 1) the instruments used, 2) the animals
studied (e.g. age, mass, number, sex), 3) the synthesised
published data, and 4) the complete contact information of
the primary investigator. Thus, no proprietary data would
be included. However, it was agreed that the creation of this
type of an archive would be extremely useful and that it
would expedite the exchange of information among
different labs. In terms of creating a data repository for raw
or unpublished data, there was unanimous but conditional
support among the participants. This was largely attributed
to three main factors: 1) proprietary control of raw
unpublished data, 2) concern over the ability to maintain
the data archive from a logistical and financial standpoint,
and 3) data access and security. Lastly, our workshop
received international notoriety by being featured in the
journal Nature (volume 415, page 4, 2002).
Currently, there are similar efforts underway to
accomplish what we originally set out to do. For example, the
OBIS-SeaMAP program has developed a database that is a
repository for similar types of data that we compiled. In the
near future, we will port our database over the SeaMAP
program. Lastly, we plan to submit a review paper this year
that outlines the results of our work and offers directions for
future studies. This database was funded by a grant from the
Office of Naval Research (N00014-00-l-0880) to D.P. Costa.
Dan Costa and Scott Shaffer