Indian Ocean Southern Right Whale Logbook Data

The Indian Ocean Southern Right Whale (IOSWR) dataset records right whale strikes by vessels in the American whaling fleet between 40° and 139° East longitude and south of 25° South latitude. The work of extracting the data was supported by the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD).

The data includes right whale strikes from the Maury, COML and Townsend datasets complemented by strike data extracted from over 100 previously untranscribed logbooks in the collections of New Bedford Whaling Museum, Nantucket Historical Association, Mystic Seaport Museum and Providence Public Library. It also contains over 300 records for right whale strikes incorrectly coded as ‘whale’ sightings or strikes in the Maury AOWL dataset. For further information on nature of these errors see the ‘About Maury’s Logbook Data‘ page.

The Indian Ocean Southern Right Whale data may viewed in the Consolidated Logbook Data viewer by filtering the Source column for Source=IOSRW. Column definitions are the same as for the Consolidated Logbook Data.