Dataset

CETUS: Cetacean monitoring surveys in the Eastern North Atlantic

EurOBIS MeasurementOrFact Open in mapper Explore occurrences

The CETUS dataset contains effort-based occurrence records collected during a cetacean monitoring programme in the Eastern North Atlantic, since 2012. The CETUS dataset contains data collected within the CETUS Project (www.cetusproject.com), a cetacean monitoring programme in the Eastern North Atlantic, running since 2012. The project is led by the Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research (CIIMAR - University of Porto, Portugal), in partnership with TRANSINSULAR - Grupo ETE, a Portuguese company for maritime transport, that offers its cargo ships to be used as a platforms of opportunity to monitor cetaceans along routes between Continental Portugal and Madeira, Azores, Canary and Cape Verde islands. On-board trained marine mammal observers collect data on: survey effort, cetacean and other megafauna occurrences, as well as marine traffic and meteorological conditions. Data is provided in the recent OBIS-ENV-DATA format, and comprises 8913 georeferenced positions associated with 3195 occurrences of 44 marine taxa.

Citation: Correia, A.M., Oliveira-Rodrigues, C., M. Silva, I., Gandra, M., Liberal, M., Valente, R., Gil, A., Rosso, M., Pierce, G.J. & Sousa-Pinto, I., CIIMAR - UP. (2022). CETUS: Cetacean monitoring surveys in the Eastern North Atlantic. Marine Data Archive.

Published: November 25, 2025 at 09:10

URL: http://ipt.vliz.be/eurobis/resource?r=cetus_cetaceans

Ana Mafalda Correia
CIIMAR/CIMAR LA, Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research, University of Porto

Miguel Gandra
CIIMAR/CIMAR LA, Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research, University of Porto

Marcos Liberal
Fraunhofer AICOS

Raul Valente
CIIMAR/CIMAR LA, Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research, University of Porto

Iolanda M. Silva
CIIMAR/CIMAR LA, Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research, University of Porto

18,307
occurrence records
179,575
measurements and facts
55
taxa
41
species

Taxa

Missing and invalid fields

Field Missing Invalid
maximumDepthInMeters 15,821
86.4%
minimumDepthInMeters 15,821
86.4%

Quality flags

The OBIS data quality flags are documented at https://github.com/iobis/obis-qc.

Flag Dropped Records
NO_DEPTH 15,821
86.4%
ON_LAND 23
0.1%

Measurement types

DNA derived data