Cetacean and sea turtle visual observations using line-transect survey methods from ships and aircraft during the Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (AMAPPS) surveys from 2010 to 2023

As part of the Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (AMAPPS), the NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC), in collaboration with the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC), conducted seasonal shipboard surveys of the U.S. oceanic waters of the Western North Atlantic out to the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and aerial surveys of U.S. continental shelf waters (up to the 200-m isobath) from 2010 to 2023. During all cetacean and sea turtle surveys, a two-team independent visual observer approach with distance sampling was used to estimate the detection probabilities, abundance, and characterize spatial distribution of the species or groups of species. This collection of datasets includes cetacean, sea turtle, other visual observations data and effort points with surveying conditions that can be used in abundance and density modeling per visual line-transect survey protocols. These datasets may also include opportunistic data and photographs of cetaceans and other taxa. Raw and processed files from conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD) casts, expendable bathythermographs (XBT), and other environmental data collected during ship surveys may also be available for some surveys. This collection ranges the entirety of the AMAPPS program, which was divided into three main periods: AMAPPS I (Oct. 2010-Sept. 2014), AMAPPS II (Oct. 2014-Sept. 2019), and AMAPPS III (Oct. 2019-Sept. 2025). Datasets will be archived retroactively, starting from 2023. All data can be individually accessed through the Granule Search below.

Tags: atlantic spotted dolphin, atmospheric/ocean indicators, balaenoptera, balaenoptera borealis or balaenoptera physalus or balaenoptera edeni or balaenoptera ricei, balaenoptera musculus, baleen whales, basking shark, beaked whales, beaked whales of the genus mesoplodon, blue whale, camera, caretta caretta, cetacea, cetacean (large), cetacean (small), cetorhinus maximus, chelonia mydas, cheloniidae, clymene dolphin, common bottlenose dolphin, common bottlenose or atlantic spotted dolphin, common dolphin, cuvier's beaked whale, delphinidae, delphinus delphis, dolphins of the genus stenella, dwarf sperm whale, endangered species, false killer whale, fraser's dolphin, gervais' beaked whale, globicephala, grampus griseus, green sea turtle, hammerhead sharks, hardshell sea turtle, humpback whale, indicator species, kogia, kogia breviceps, kogia sima, lagenodelphis hosei, loggerhead sea turtle, megaptera novaeangliae, melon-headed or pygmy killer or false killer whale, mesoplodon, mesoplodon europaeus, mola mola, mysticeti, oceanography, odontoceti, pantropical spotted dolphin, peponocephala electra or feresa attenuata or pseudorca crassidens, photograph, physeter macrocephalus, pilot whales, population abundance, pseudorca crassidens, pygmy or dwarf sperm whale, pygmy sperm whale, rhincodon typus, risso's dolphin, rorquals (except humpback whale), rough-toothed dolphin, sei or fin or brydeâs or rice's whale, selachii, shark, species abundance, species distribution, species distribution models, species/population interactions, sperm whale, sphyrnidae, stenella, stenella attenuata, stenella clymene, stenella coeruleoalba, stenella frontalis, steno bredanensis, striped dolphin, sunfish, toothed whales, tursiops truncatus, tursiops truncatus or stenella frontalis, university of miamiâs cooperative institute for marine and atmospheric studies (cimas), wc6crt, whale shark, ziphiidae, ziphius cavirostris
Organization: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce