Opportunistic records of marine megafauna in Suriname

Original provider:
Green Heritage Fund of Suriname

Dataset credits:
Monique Pool, Green Heritage Fund of Suriname

Abstract:
The Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) project in Suriname was initiated in 2017. Part of this EU-funded project focussed on collecting all the information regarding marine megafauna within the region (Suriname and Guyana). As part of the MSP project we searched for potential marine megafauna data holders and different data-sets were found:
(1) research data: published and unpublished data collected during dedicated (effort-related) marine fauna surveys (where a GPS track was available);
(2) data collected by Marine Fauna Observers during geophysical seismic surveys (without an available GPS track);
(3) Opportunistic data collected without keeping track of effort (e.g. website, social media and other sighting records collected by university students or citizens); and
(4) Systematic land-based observations carried out during sea turtle surveys on Braamspunt. Here you can find all opportunistic records of marine megafauna in Suriname, including coastal and offshore regions. For the MSP-project we used records which were classed as 'Definite' or 'Probable'. Where 'Definite' records were accompanied by photo; and 'Probable' records had a good description and were coming from a trusted source. Other records with
an unsure identification (for example 'possible green turtle'), were upgraded to 'Probable' records of species-groups, e.g. 'hard-shelled turtle', 'ray species', 'shark species', 'dolphin sp'. All other records were discarded. NB all bird records submitted by the holders of the
database 'Birds of Suriname' were classed as 'Definite'.