Cetacean Monitoring undertaken during the Western European Shelf Pelagic Acoustic Survey (WESPAS) 2018

Published by: Department of Housing, Local Government, and Heritage

Licensed under: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

Category: Environment

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The Western European Shelf Passive Acoustic Survey is an acoustic survey undertaken by the Fisheries Ecosystems Advisory Services (FEAS) Department of the Marine Institute of Ireland. The WESPAS provides a unique opportunity for surveillance of the summer distribution of cetaceans in shelf water habitats along Ireland’s Atlantic margins which can be difficult to reach by other means.

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Theme	Environment
Date released	2022-06-17
Date updated	2023-11-16
Dataset conforms to these standards	The INSPIRE Directive or INSPIRE lays down a general framework for a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for the purposes of European Community environmental policies and policies or activities which may have an impact on the environment.
Rights notes	{http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/,"Copyright Government of Ireland. This dataset was created by National Parks and Wildlife Service, Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. This copyright material is licensed for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",otherRestrictions}
Update frequency	Other
Language	English
Geographic coverage in GeoJSON format	{"type":"Polygon","coordinates":[[[-11.551322937012001, 48.624444618786],[-11.551322937012001, 56.358819618786], [-6.409721374512, 56.358819618786], [-6.409721374512, 48.624444618786], [-11.551322937012001, 48.624444618786]]]}
Spatial Reference Systems (SRS)	WGS 84 (EPSG:4326)
Vertical Extent	{"verticalDomainName": "EPSG Projection 5731 - Malin Head height", "minVerticalExtent": "0", "maxVerticalExtent": "1014"}
Provenance information	The IFAW Logger 2000™ (IFAW, 2000) data collection software package was used to collect all positional, environmental and sightings data, and save it to a Microsoft Access database. Positional data was collected using a portable GPS receiver with a USB connection and recorded every 10 seconds. Environmental data was recorded at least every 15-30 minutes, or sooner if there was a change in environmental conditions. Environmental data recorded included; wind speed, wind direction, sea state, swell, visibility, cloud cover and precipitation. All data entry was time stamped by Logger and saved in the Access database. The distance of each sighting from the ship was estimated using a fixed interval range finder, while the bearing from the ship was estimated with an angle board. This data, along with data such as species identification, group size, composition, heading, sighting cues, surfacing interval, behaviour and any associations with birds or other cetaceans was also recorded on the time stamped Logger sighting record page. Where species identification could not be confirmed, sightings were recorded at an appropriate taxonomic/confidence level (i.e. probable, possible, unidentified whale, unidentified dolphin etc.). Auxiliary and incidental sightings were also recorded. Some data was amended to comply with GDPR legislation and open data publication guidelines.
Period of time covered (begin)	2018-06-09
Period of time covered (end)	2018-07-24