Small Cetacean Site Survey Investigations 2008

Published by: Department of Housing, Local Government, and Heritage

Licensed under: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

Category: Environment

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A survey of small cetaceans was carried out at three sites (Carnsore Point, Blasket Islands cSAC and Donegal bay) to derive density and abundance estimates using distance sampling. Single platform line transect surveys were carried out on three days at each between July and September 2008. During nine days of surveys, a total of 121 track-lines were surveyed of a total distance of 622.80 km in sea-state ≤2. From the total of 63 sightings, 122 individual harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) were recorded. There were also four sightings of single minke whales (Balaenoptera acutoratrata), two sightings of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) with a total of 26 individuals and one sighting of two common dolphins (Delphinus delphis).

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Theme	Environment
Date released	2022-07-08
Date updated	2023-11-14
Dataset conforms to these standards	The INSPIRE Directive or INSPIRE lays down a general framework for a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for the purposes of European Community environmental policies and policies or activities which may have an impact on the environment.
Rights notes	['http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/', 'Copyright Government of Ireland. This dataset was created by National Parks and Wildlife Service, Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. This copyright material is licensed for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/', 'otherRestrictions']
Update frequency	Other
Language	English
Geographic coverage in GeoJSON format	{"type":"Polygon","coordinates":[[[-10.650444030762, 50.807923689449],[-10.650444030762, 55.993470564449], [-5.289115905762, 55.993470564449], [-5.289115905762, 50.807923689449], [-10.650444030762, 50.807923689449]]]}
Spatial Reference Systems (SRS)	WGS 84 (EPSG:4326)
Vertical Extent	{"verticalDomainName": "EPSG Projection 5731 - Malin Head height", "minVerticalExtent": "0", "maxVerticalExtent": "1014"}
Provenance information	During each transect the position of the survey vessel was tracked continuously through a GPS receiver fed directly into a laptop while survey effort, including environmental conditions (sea-state, wind strength and direction, glare etc.) were recorded directly onto LOGGER software (©IFAW) every 15 minutes. When a sighting was made the position of the vessel was recorded immediately and the angle of the sighting from the track of the vessel and the angular distance of the sighting from the vessel recorded. These data were communicated to the recorder in the wheelhouse via a VHF radio. The angle was recorded to the nearest degree via an angle board attached to the vessel immediately in front of each observer. Accurate distance estimation is essential for distance sampling. During some surveys an orange buoy 225mm in diameter was towed 200m astern of the observers’ position on the survey vessel. This provided a reference point against which to estimate distances. Some data was modified to comply with GDPR /open data publication. The dataset was collected at Carnsore, Co. Wexford over three surveys on the 21st July, 22nd August and 13th September 2008 as part of the small cetacean site survey investigations.
Period of time covered (begin)	2008-07-01
Period of time covered (end)	2008-09-30