Marine Animal Incident Database

Large whale stranding, death, ship strike and entanglement incidents are all recorded to monitor the health of each population and track anthropogenic factors that influence their recovery. This Oracle developed database is meant to consolidate the various forms of data into one searchable source for the east coast. Biological and geographic information will be recorded and searchable along with fishing gear information (entanglements), vessel parameters (ship strikes) and serious injury determinations.

The east coast of the U.S. had multiple sources and data sets for large whale incidents. This database was meant to consolidate the northeast and southeast data into one searchable source.

The database is continuing to be developed and expanded. Please contact POC for latest updates.

55 Great Republic Drive, Gloucester, MA 01930; Protected Resouces Division

Geographic area for large whale incident data.

NMFS employees only. Data that is requested by outside organizations is reviewed by NERO/PRD panel to prevent duplication of effort and release of sensitive information.

Contact PRD data manager.

NMFS employees only. Usernames and passwords are managed by POC.

Any release of fishing gear information must be approved by NERO gear team. Personal fisherman information is protected by the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which may include gear type and location (rule of three).

Relational database.

Cases are frequently on-going and the status of the incident or health of the animal may alter the determination or status at any time.

Entanglement case information within this report has been compiled from numerous resources including U.S. and Canadian federal governments, U.S. state agencies and partners within the Atlantic Large Whale Disentanglement Network. The reports represent all known U.S. coast-wide large whale entanglement data including animals that fall under U.S. regulations but were outside U.S. borders (ex. right whales, Gulf of Maine humpback whales), but should be considered a minimum number and not comprehensive. Ship strike cases are reported opportunistically to NMFS Northeast Regional Office from U.S. and Canadian Atlantic waters. The reports represent all known coast-wide large whale ship strike data, but should be considered a minimum number and not comprehensive.

Only incidents that are reported to NMFS or network members are included

Data frequently trickles in for any case thus no hard time parameters can be established.

GARFO's PRD division handles quality control for this data. The point of contact for this dataset can provide more details.

Access to this data is tightly controlled. Most access is read-only. Write access is given only after data owners have authorized (accompanied by a signed NDA), and data is usually edited via an access controlled application. Data is QAQC'd on a regular basis by authorized personnel, and backed up both to disk and tape on a daily basis.

GARFO PRD staff manually enter data that is received from public.