FIGAS Cetacean Sightings (1993-2003)

It is a GIS database of cetacean observations within the Falkland Islands' Exclusive Economic Zone, gathered from pre-existing citizen science records obtained from the Falkland Islands Government Air Service (FIGAS). Observations are in the form of GPS points. Information on fields included in this dataset is in the accompanying file, 'Whale Sighting Data Field Descriptions.xlsx'. More information on how this information was gathered and evaluated can be found in 'Return of the Whales in the Falkland Islands' waters' (Frans & Aug? 2016, in prep). This dataset was produced as part of the Darwin Plus- funded project, 'Marine Spatial Planning for the Falkland Islands' (July 2014-July 2016), and the Falkland Islands Environmental Studies Budget project, 'Mapping whale distribution around the Falkland Islands using best available knowledge'.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field	Value
Last Updated	December 21, 2020, 10:04 (PST)
Created	January 30, 2020, 05:21 (PST)
Region	Falkland Islands
Language	eng
Topic Category	Biota; flora and/or fauna in natural environment
Temporal Extent Start	1993-01-01
Temporal Extent End	2003-12-31
Dataset Reference Date	2003
Lineage	Some pilots at the Falkland Islands Government Air Service (FIGAS) opportunistically recorded cetacean sightings from 1991 to 2006. These citizen science records covered a wide range of accuracies, from GPS coordinates to 30 km grids. FIGAS provided copies of all the notebook pages that contained information about whale sightings; we extracted and digitised all GPS locations (years 1993-2003). Species name, date, minimum, maximum, and mean count, observation platform, were also extracted. Each record was then assigned a reliability rank, based on the confidence in the sighting, as indicated by notes within the records. Information on the data fields and categories are described in 'Whale Sighting Data Field Descriptions.xlsx'.
West Longitude	23126.6
South Latitude	3877380.35
East Longitude	688091.57
North Latitude	4704157.09
Spatial Reference System	UTM 21S WGS84
Responsible Organisation Name	Hidden (personal data protection)
Contact Mail Address	Hidden (personal data protection)
Responsible Party Role	Hidden (personal data protection)
Access Limitations	Open access
Use Constraints	Open, but copyright and/or Intellectual Property Rights apply
Resource Reference	Cite data source as: Veronica F. Frans, Amelie A. Auge. Use of local ecological knowledge to investigate endangered baleen whale recovery in the Falkland Islands, Biological Conservation 202 (2016) 127-137 Please acknowledge the raw source data as: Falkland Islands Government Air Service (FIGAS)
Data Format	shape
Update Frequency	not planned
Accuracy	1 km
Resource Type	Dataseries
Original Title	Hidden (internal use only)
Metadata Date	2016-03-19
Metadata Point of Contact	datamanager@saeri.ac.fk
Contact Consent	Contact details hidden
Unique Resource ID	FK-SAERI-265

Dataset extent

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