Animal Tracking at Heard Island 2003/2004 - ARGOS data

A major goal of a research expedition by the Australian Antarctic Division over the summer of (2003/04) in the Southern Ocean off Heard Island was to answer some of the questions needed to determine what level of exploitation of Southern Ocean fisheries is sustainable. The use of novel equipment, cutting edge technology and some adept logistical co-ordination allowed the Aurora Australis, on the Southern Ocean, to catch the prey of the predators of Heard Island.This work was accomplished by placing satellite trackers on animals at Heard Island, and then, using the ARGOS system, monitoring their activities in the Southern Ocean around the island. The Aurora Australis assisted in the monitoring and tracking of the animals by searching the areas the animals were foraging for prey species.The animals tracked in this experiment were:Light-mantled sooty albatrossesblack-browed albatrossesking penguinsmacaroni penguinsAntarctic fur sealsThe columns in this data file are:individual_id - the identifier of the individual animalspecies - the species name of that animalpttid - the identifier of the PTT tracker deployed on that animaldeployment_longitude - the longitude at which the tracker was deployeddeployment_latitude - the latitude at which the tracker was deployedobservation_date - the date (ISO8601 format) of the position observationyear, month, day, time, time_zone - as per the observation_date, but in separate columnslocationclass - the ARGOS location class of the position (see http://www.argos-system.org/manual/3-location/34_location_classes.htm; value -3 corresponds to a "Z" class, value -2 to "B", value -1 to "A")latitude - the latitude of the position observationlongitude - the longitude of the position observation