IMIS

The objectives of SWSS were to (1) establish baseline information on the biology and behavior of sperm whales in the northern Gulf of Mexico, (2) characterize sperm whale habitat use in the northern Gulf of Mexico, and (3) determine possible changes in behavior of sperm whales when subjected to manmade noise, particularly from seismic airgun arrays used for offshore oil and gas exploration and geological monitoring. This dataset includes sightings of cetaceans other than sperm whales in 2002-2004. Sperm whale visual tracking data are found in BOEM Sperm Whale Seismic Study (SWSS) S-Tag sperm whale trackings 2002-2004 which is also accompanied with effort data. Since the 2005 data are in a different format, they are registered separately as BOEM Sperm Whale Seismic Study (SWSS) S-Tag cetacean sightings 2005