1. A collaborative and near-comprehensive North Pacific humpback whale photo-ID dataset
- Author
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Ted Cheeseman, Ken Southerland, Jo Marie Acebes, Katherina Audley, Jay Barlow, Lars Bejder, Caitlin Birdsall, Amanda Bradford, Josie Byington, John A. Calambokidis, Rachel Cartwright, Jen Cedarleaf, Andrea Jacqueline García Chavez, Jens J. Currie, Joëlle De Weerdt, Nicole Doe, Thomas Doniol-Valcroze, Karina Dracott, Olga Filatova, Rachel Finn, Kiirsten Flynn, John Ford, Astrid Frisch-Jordán, Christine Gabriele, Beth Goodwin, Craig Hayslip, Jackie Hildering, Marie C. Hill, Jeff Jacobsen, Meagan Jones, Nozomi Kobayashi, Edward Lyman, Mark Malleson, Evgeny Mamaev, Pamela Martínez Loustalot, Annie Masterman, Craig Matkin, Christie M. McMillan, Jeff E. Moore, John R. Moran, Janet Neilson, Hayley Newell, Haruna Okabe, Marilia Olio, Adam Pack, Daniel Palacios, Heidi Pearson, Ester Quintana-Rizzo, Raul Fernando Ramírez Barragán, Nicola Ransome, Fred Sharpe, Tasli Shaw, Stephanie Stack, Iain Staniland, Jan Straley, Andrew Szabo, Suzie Teerlink, Olga Titova, Jorge Urban R., Martin van Aswegen, Marcel Vinicius de Morais, Olga von Ziegesar, Briana Witteveen, Janie Wray, Kymberly Yano, Denny Zwiefelhofer, Hiram Rosales-Nanduca, M. Esther Jiménez-López, and Phil Clapham
- Abstract
We present an ocean-basin-scale dataset that includes tail fluke photographic identification (photo-ID) and encounter data for most living individual humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the North Pacific Ocean. The dataset was built through a broad collaboration combining 39 separate curated photo-ID catalogs, supplemented with community science data. Data from throughout the North Pacific were aggregated into 13 regions, including six breeding regions, six feeding regions, and one migratory corridor. All images were compared with minimal pre-processing using a recently developed machine learning artificial intelligence image recognition algorithm capable of rapidly detecting matches between individuals to an estimated 97–99% accuracy. For the study period of 2001 to 2021, a total of 27,956 unique individuals were documented in 157,350 encounters. Each individual was encountered, on average, in 5.6 sampling periods (i.e., breeding and feeding seasons), with an annual average of 87% of whales encountered in more than one season. The combined dataset and image recognition tool represents a living and accessible resource for collaborative, basin-wide studies of a keystone marine mammal in a time of rapid ecological change.
- Published
- 2023