IMIS

BMMRO has been conducting a long-term study documenting the occurrence, distribution, and abundance of marine mammals around the islands of The Bahamas since 1991. Currently based in Sandy Point on Great Abaco Island, this project provides the only comprehensive documentation of marine mammal fauna in this part of the world. The dataset presented here includes only marine mammal sightings, and other sea turtle sightings and marine mammal strandings and sightings are included in separate datasets in OBIS-SEAMAP. The dataset presented here is a subset of marine mammal sightings between 1988 and 2008, including sightings reported from the public. The dataset also is a subset of BMMRO vessel encounters with marine mammals between 1991 and 2008, comprising 20 different species, with the Atlantic bottlenose dolphin representing 60% of all encounters. The entire dataset includes stranding records between 1944 and 2008. In addition, the entire dataset includes sightings of turtles comprising 3 different species between 1991 and 2008. A sighting is when our vessel was unable to close in on the group of animals while an encounter is when closing was successful and photographs / video recording of the animals were obtained. The dataset includes off-transect sightings and encounters (opportunistic).