IMIS - Marine Research Groups

This 1988 eastern tropical Pacific cetacean line-transect survey was the third in a series of annual surveys (1986-1990) designed to monitor and detect trends in populations of dolphins killed in the yellowfin tuna purse seine fishery. This survey was conducted by the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center aboard NOAA ships David Starr Jordan and McArthur for a combined total of approximately 24,000 kilometers surveyed from late July to early December 1988. This dataset provides the time-date and geographical coordinates, by species/stock, of all cetaceans detected during the survey, as well as the daily and intra-daily start and end points of the line-transect survey. Purpose The primary purpose of the survey was to collect the information necessary to calculate the relative abundance of those dolphin stocks in the eastern tropical Pacific that are taken as a bycatch of the yellowfin tuna purse seine fishery.