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 sperm whale visual tracking data in 2002-2004. Sightings of other cetaceans are found in BOEM Sperm Whale Seismic Study (SWSS) S-Tag cetacean sightings 2002-2004 Since the vessels often tracked the sighted sperm whales for further surveys, many sightings in this dataset represent the same animals. 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 Effort data were filtered to eliminate early morning and night times where no visual efforts were conducted. The of-effort times are different in years. 2002: 06:30 - 19:30 CDT 2003 SH: 05:50 - 19:30 CDT 2003 STag: 06:30 - 20:30 CDT 2004: 07:00 – 20:00 CDT