SMRU Small Cetacean Abundance in the North Sea (SCANS), 1994

The Small Cetacean Abundance in the North Sea (SCANS) project was
initiated in 1993. Dedicated line transect shipboard surveys were conducted
between 27 June and 26 July 1994. Transects covered 20,000km2 in an area of
890,000km2. The survey area included the region specified in the Agreement on
Small Cetaceans Of the Baltic And North Seas (ASCOBANS) (excluding most of the
Baltic Sea proper) and the Celtic Sea. The shipboard methodology involved
simultaneous survey from two independent observation platforms, one of which
searched farther ahead of the vessel than the other. There were two observation
platforms on each of the nine vessels participating in the SCANS project. Three
species dominate the dataset; the harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena),
white-beaked dolphin (Lagenorhynchus albirostris) and minke whale (Balaenoptera
acutorostrata). The dataset is a point file containing information on all
sighting events from each platform on each vessel during survey effort. The
effort file contains the start and end positions for each leg of survey effort
for each vessel and associated parameters. The data have been extracted from
the Joint Cetacean Database.