Filtered Argos location data for pygmy blue whales 2009 and 2011
This csv details the raw Argos locations generated from satellite tags attached to pygmy blue whales in order to describe their migratory movements through Australian waters as described in:
Double MC, Andrews-Goff V, Jenner KCS, Jenner M-N, Laverick SM, et al. (2014) Migratory Movements of Pygmy Blue Whales (Balaenoptera musculus
brevicauda) between Australia and Indonesia as Revealed by Satellite Telemetry. PLoS ONE 9(4): e93578. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0093578
This csv includes the following data fields -
ptt: the unique Argos identifier assigned to each satellite tag
gmt: the date and time in gmt with the format 'yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss'
class: the Argos assigned location class (see paper for details)
latitude
longitude
deploydate: deployment date and time in gmt for each tag with the format 'yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss'
filt: the outcome of the sdafilter (see paper for details) - either "removed" (location removed by the filter), "not" (location not removed) or "end_location" (location at the end of the track where the algorithm could not be applied)
SORP 2012 Blue Whale Research Bonney Upwelling: Aerial imagery
This dataset is a collection of aerial images taken from a camera mounted in the fuselage of the CASA-212 400 aircraft used to survey for pygmy blue whales. Line transect data from that survey are also available (but see Gill, P.C., Pirzl, R., Morrice, M.G. and Lawton, K. (2015). "Cetacean diversity of the continental shelf and slope off southern australia." The Journal of Wildlife Management 79(4): 672-681 for more details).
The digital images were taken with a Nikon D200 camera, using a 35mm lens. The survey altitude was approximately 1500 ft. Images have full EXIF data attached. Image footprints are approximately 204 m along-track by 306 m across track, with some image overlap.
Aerial images; downward facing images along track from a line transect survey.
There are ~41K jpeg images.
Images taken with Nikon D200 camera, with 35 mm lens.
Aerial survey altitude was approximately 1500 ft.
Each image has a water-surface footprint of 204 m along-track by 306 m across track; there is some image overlap along-track.
The EXIF data for each image is populated.
Images taken in January 2012 along the Bonney Upwelling, along the south-east coast of Australia, an area known to be a summer (Nov-May) feeding ground for pygmy blue whales; the surveys focussed on the area bounded by 138.0-145.0ºE and 36.6-40.3ºS.
Switching state space model for pygmy blue whale satellite tag derived locations
An R data file containing a hierarchical switching state-space model of pygmy blue whale Argos-collected telemetry data using the bsam package (see Jonsen (2016). Joint estimation over multiple individuals improves behavioural state inference from animal movement data. Scientific Reports 6: 20625.) in R. The model estimated location states for each individual at regular 3-h time intervals, accounting for measurement error in the irregularly observed Argos surface locations; and estimated the behavioural state associated with each location. Satellite tags were deployed on pygmy blue whales located in the Bonney Upwelling region, SA, between 7 January and 16 March 2015.
File can be opened in R (A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. URL https://www.R-project.org/ ) using the code: readRDS('bw_3h_ssm.RDS')
2012 Blue whale voyages in the Bonney Upwelling, Australia
This metadata record is a parent for all data collected during the 2012 Blue whale voyages. Description of specific data sets can be found within child datasets.
2013 Antarctic Blue Whale Voyage to the Southern OCean
This metadata record is a parent for all data collected during the 2013 Antarctic Blue Whale Voyage. Description of specific data sets can be found in the Voyage Science Plan and within child datasets.
This dataset contains long-term underwater acoustic recordings made under Australian Antarctic Science Projects 4101 and 4102, and the International Whaling Commission’s Southern Ocean Research Partnership (IWC-SORP) Southern Ocean Hydrophone Network (SOHN).
Calibrated measurements of sound pressure were made at several sites across several years using custom moored acoustic recorders (MARs) designed and manufactured by the Science Technical Support group of the Australian Antarctic Division. These moored acoustic recorders were designed to operate for year-long, deep-water, Antarctic deployments. Each moored acoustic recorder included a factory calibrated HTI 90-U hydrophone and workshop-calibrated frontend electronics (hydrophone preamplifier, bandpass filter, and analog-digital converter), and used solid state digital storage (SDHC) to reduce power consumption and mechanical self-noise (e.g. from hard-drives with motors and rotating disks). Electronics were placed in a glass instrumentation sphere rated to a depth of 6000 m, and the sphere was attached to a short mooring with nylon straps to decouple recorder and hydrophone from sea-bed. The hydrophone was mounted above the glass sphere with elastic connections to the mooring frame to reduce mechanical self-noise from movement of the hydrophone. The target noise floor of each recorder was below that expected for a quiet ocean at sea state zero. The analog-digital converter, based on an AD7683B chip, provides 100 dB of spurious free dynamic range, but a total signal-to-noise and distortion of 86 dB which yields 14 effective bits of dynamic range at a 1 kHz input frequency.
The data for each recording site comprise a folder of 16-bit WAV audio files recorded at a nominal sample rate of 12 kHz. The names of each WAV file correspond to a deployment code followed by the start time (in UTC) of the file as determined by the microprocessor’s real-time clock e.g. 201_2013-12-25_13-00-00.wav would correspond to a wav file with deployment code 201 that starts at 1 pm on December 25th 2013 (UTC).
Recording locations were chosen to correspond to sites used during AAS Project 2683. These sites were along the resupply routes for Australia’s Antarctic stations, and typically there was only one opportunity to recover and redeploy MARs each year.