Whale Sightings (1940-2015) in inshore waters of the Falkland Islands

The dataset comprises whale observations in Falkland Islands inshore (22km from shore) waters. Data have been gathered from pre-existing catch, survey and opportunistic sighting datasets, and local knowledge from Falkland Islands residents. Observations are in the form of 1kmsq vector grids. Information on fields included in this dataset are in the accompanying file, 'Whale Sighting Data Field Descriptions.xlsx'. This dataset should be considered the raw dataset from which further analyses can be carried out. A detailed list of sources is found in 'List_of_FI_Whale_Data_Sources.xlsx', also stored in the SAERI IMS-GIS data centre. More information on how this database was created and used can be found in 'Return of the Whales in the Falkland Islands' waters' (Frans & Aug? 2016, in prep). This map 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'.