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Abundance and distribution of cetaceans in the state of Aragua, Venezuela
Citation
Silva-Hernandez, M.G.; Bolaños-Jimenez, J.; Herrera-Trujillo, O. and Ferreira, C.. 2007. Abundancia y distribución de los cetáceos presentes en la costa del estado Aragua. Thesis: 100. https://marineinfo.org/id/dataset/3636

Access data
Availability: Creative Commons License This dataset is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Description
This data is the result of a study carried out between March 2006 and January 2007 in response of the inclusion of whale watching (WW) activities into the priorities of three national programs of the Ministry of Science and Technology and Fundacite Aragua. We expect that WW activities will soon be successful at a commercial level, so we decided to generate data on the biological and ecological aspects of the three cetacean species presents in the coast of Aragua (Stenella frontalis, Tursiops truncatus and Balaenoptera edeni). This information will provide a basis for future comparisons about population aspects as well as responsible management of this activity in the region as well as in the country. more

There is updated information on abundance and distribution of cetaceans in the central coast of Venezuela, where is needed baseline information in order to manage dolphin-watching activities. Between March 2006 - January 2007, 28 surveys were made aboard small boats, powered with outboard engines, totaling 71.5 h of effort. The presence of Atlantic spotted (Stenella frontalis), bottlenose (Tursiops truncatus) dolphins and Bryde´s whales (Balaenoptera edeni) was confirmed. Cetaceans were found on 71.4% of the surveys. Relative abundance, expressed as number of individuals found per Km of transect line and hour of survey effort were 6 (± S.D. 12) and 26 (±S.D. 42), respectively, for S. frontalis and 1 (± S.D. 1) and 3 (±S.D. 2), respectively, for T. truncatus. Group size ranged from 6-400 individuals (mean 120 ± S.D. 119) and from 1-20 individuals (mean 8 ±S.D 7) for S. frontalis and, T. truncatus respectively. Some level of differentiation in habitat preference for these two species was found, with bottlenose dolphins preferring coastal waters over the 100m isobath, and Atlantic spotted dolphins preferring deeper waters around the 200m contour. Balaenopterid whales were found in March 2006, probably a cow-calf pair, Balaenoptera sp., and in October 2006, adult B. edeni. Total effort for the whole reasearch: 4294 min.

Scope
Themes:
Biology > Mammals
Keywords:
Marine/Coastal, ASW, Caribbean, Balaenoptera Lacépède, 1804, Stenella Gray, 1866, Tursiops truncatus (Montagu, 1821)

Geographical coverage
ASW, Caribbean [Marine Regions]

Temporal coverage
28 March 2006 - 13 January 2007

Taxonomic coverage
Balaenoptera Lacépède, 1804 [WoRMS]
Stenella Gray, 1866 [WoRMS]
Tursiops truncatus (Montagu, 1821) [WoRMS]

Contributors
Universidad Central de Venezuela, moredata owner

Related datasets
Published in:
OBIS-SEAMAP: Spatial Ecological Analysis of Megavertebrate Populations, more

Publication
Based on this dataset
Silva Hernández, M.G. (2007). Abundancia y distribución de los cetáceos de la costa del Estado Aragua, Venezuela. BSc Thesis. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid: Madrid. 100 pp., more

URLs
Dataset information:

Dataset status: Completed
Data type: Data
Data origin: Research: field survey
Metadatarecord created: 2012-11-28
Information last updated: 2012-11-28
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