Biopsy samples (small amounts of skin and blubber) were collected from humpback and blue whales during the Antarctic blue whale voyage 2013. For more information please see: http://www.marinemammals.gov.au/sorp/antarctic-blue-whale-project This dataset consists of an access database summarising biopsy events containing the fields: Pod: a combination of date and where the biopsy was taken from (small boat - Remora, or main vessel - Amaltal Explorer) Ship reference: sighting number Number of individuals sighted Age class and sex Satellite tag number Biopsy sample number Biopsy collection location (longitude and latitude) Biopsy collection time (UTC) Reaction to biopsy Number of biopsy attempts Photo ID images Biopsy collection photo Comments An excel spreadsheet (Biopsy_info_ ABWV2013.xlsx) details the biopsy processing that occurred upon collection of a sample. Where possible, each blue whale sample was split and preserved in 2 x All Protect, 1 x EtOH and 1 x Nitrogen. Each humpback sample was additionally preserved in RNA later and stored at -20 degrees Celsius and individually detailed in spreadsheet Biopsy_info _ABWV2013(hbw).xlsx. Biopsy samples were processed to determine sex and relatedness using DLOOP analysis and the results are held in: 240513 BW Sexing Results.xls

All photos taken during the Antarctic blue whale voyage in an attempt to get a best photo identification image of Antarctic blue whales, pygmy blue whales, killer whales, right whales and humpback whales. Image collection location and other details such as photographer, species, date (UTC) can be found in excel spreadsheet.

The ‘Logger’ data entry system was developed by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and is a flexible system to record information during a voyage. This system was the primary data entry system for the voyage and all events were recorded in Logger’s database. The logger access database contains all data collected throughout the Antarctic blue whale voyage related to: Observer effort (effort status, event, number of observers and locations, ship guide and data logger) Cetacean sightings and resightings (time, sighting number, sighting platform, estimate distance, binocular reticles, angle, species, sighting cue, heading, estimate of number of individuals, observer of sighting, behaviour, pod compaction, comments) Sonobuoy deployments (time, sonobuoy number, notes) Environmental observations (sightability, sea state, swell, weather, cloud cover, visibility, intensity, glare, ice, sea surface temperature) GPS data (time indexed NMEA feed) CTD deployments (time, notes) Biopsy events (time, success, sample number, reaction, attempts, dart recovery, notes)

This metadata record is a parent for all data collected during the 2012 Blue whale voyages. Description of specific data sets can be found within child datasets.

The sonobuoy deployment log is a csv file that contains metadata on the deployment of sonobuoys deployed during the 2013 Antarctic Blue Whale Voyage. The first row contains column headers, while each subsequent row contains deployment information for a single sonobuoy. Data that were recorded during each sonobuoy deployment are: buoyID: Buoy ID number is the sequential number of the buoy starting at 1 for the first buoy of the trip. startDate: Date (UTC) at the start of the sonobuoy deployment (YYYY-MM-DD) startTime: Time (UTC) at the start of the sonobuoy deployment (HH:MM:SS) 2 digit hour with 24 hour clock and leading zero. stopDate: Date (UTC) at the end of the sonobuoy deployment (YYYY-MM-DD). While the recording is in progress this should be 1,2 4 or 8 hours after the startTime based on sonobuoy setting. stopTime: Time (UTC) at the end of the sonobuoy deployment (HH:MM:SS). While the recording is in progress this should be 1,2 4 or 8 hours after the startTime based on the sonobuoy setting. lat: Latitude of deployment in decimal degrees. Southern hemisphere latitudes should be negative. long: Longitude of deployment in decimal degrees. Western hemisphere longitudes should be negative. alt: Depth of the sonobuoy deployment in metres. For DIFAR sonobuoys either 30, 120 or 300. recordingChannel: This is the channel number within the recorded wav-file that contains audio from this buoy as would be reported by Matlab. Channel numbers start at 1 (1-indexed) so usually this will be 1, 2 or 3. magVariation: The magnetic variation in degrees. Positive declination is East, negative is West. At the start of a recording this will be entered from a chart. As the recording progresses, this should be updated by measuring the bearing to the vessel. sonobuoyType: The an/ssq designation for the sonobuoy. Usually 53B, 53D, 53F, HIDAR, 57A/B, or 36Q. receiver: The type and serial number of the calibrated radio receiver (WinRadio) used to receive the VHF signal. (wr15725, wr17274, wr15274, or wr15273) preamp: The (unitless) gain in dB of any preamplifier (including the instrument preamp from the Fireface UFX). Usually 10 or 20 dB. adc: The analog-to-digital converter (adc) used to digitize the audio. This is the sound card name and gain. All data were recorded on an RME Fireface UFX, so Ufx10 would be the RME Fireface UFX with a gain of 10 dB. vhfFreq: The VHF channel number used to receive the sonobuoys. Sonobuoys have 99 pre-set VHF channels between

A spreadsheet detailing the filenames of the best left and/or right photos of blue whales photographed and individually identified during the Antarctic blue whale voyage 2013. The 'best' photos are also included as jpegs. See http://www.marinemammals.gov.au/sorp/antarctic-blue-whale-project for further detail regarding the Antarctic blue whale voyage.

During the 2013 Antarctic Blue Whale Voyage Acousticians noted all whale calls and other acoustic events that were detected during real-time monitoring in a Sonobuoy Event Log. A written summary of the event log was recorded during data collection at approximately 15 minute intervals, and this summary comprises the Whale Tracking Log. The acoustician on-duty recorded the average bearings or locations of each calling whale/group every 15 minutes in the written Whale Tracking Log. Entries in the written Sonobuoy Tracking Log (on the bench in the acoustics workstation) also include total number of different whales heard in that 15 minute interval. If multiple whales/groups were detected, then the acoustician on-duty, in consultation with the lead acoustician and/or voyage management designateded one of the whales the 'target' whale, and attempted to encounter this target first. When targeting a whale/group, the acoustician on-duty continued to track all other whales/groups in the area as these tracked whales/groups may become the next target after obtaining concluding with the current target. Date: (UTC) written only at top of datasheet Time: (UTC) on the hour, 15 past, half past, and 15 to. Track: Unique identifier for each whale/group tracked in the past 15 minutes. Each track will have: Location: Either an average bearing from a sonobuoy (eg 220 degrees from SB18) or a Lat/Lon from the most recent triangulation Notes: What is the vessel action with respect to this tracked whale/group? (eg. Is this the current or previous 'target'? Are we presently photographing this whale? Did we finish photographing the whale?) Has the whale gone silent? Has this track crossed paths with another?

During the 2013 Antarctic Blue Whale Voyage Acousticians noted all whale calls and other acoustic events that were detected during real-time monitoring in a Sonobuoy Event Log. The acoustic tracking software, difarBSM, stored processed bearings from acoustic events and cross bearings in tab delimited text files. Each event was assigned a classification by the acoustician, and events for each classification were stored in separate text files. The first row in each file contains the column headers, and the content of each column is as follows: buoyID: Buoy ID number is the number of the sonobuoy on which this event was detected. This can be used as a foreign key to link to the sonobuoy deployment log. timeStamp_matlabDatenum: Date and time (UTC) at the start of the event represented as a Matlab datenum (i.e. number of days since Jan 0 0000). Latitude: Latitude of the sonobuoy deployment in decimal degrees. Southern hemisphere latitudes should be negative. Longitude: Longitude of sonobuoy deployment in decimal degrees. Western hemisphere longitudes should be negative. Altitude: Depth of the sonobuoy deployment in metres. For DIFAR sonobuoys either 30, 120 or 300. magneticVariation_degrees: The estimated magnetic variation of the sonobuoy in degrees at the time of the event. Positive declination is East, negative is West. At the start of a recording this will be entered from a chart. As the recording progresses, this should be updated by measuring the bearing to the vessel. bearing_degreesMagnetic: Magnetic bearing in degrees from the sonobuoy to the acoustic event. Magnetic bearings were selected by the acoustician by choosing a single point on the bearing-frequency surface (AKA DIFARGram) produced by the analysis software difarBSM. frequency_Hz: The frequency in Hz of the magnetic bearing that the acoustician selected from the bearing-frequency surface (DIFARGram). logDifarPower: The base 10 logarithm of the height of the point on the DIFARGram receiveLevel_dB: This column contains an estimate of the The RMS receive level (dB SPL re 1 micro Pa) of the event. Received levels were estimated by applying a correction for the shaped sonobuoy frequency response, the receiver’s frequency response, and were calculated over only the frequency band specified in each classification (see below). soundType: soundType is the classification assigned to the event by the acoustician. Analysis parameters for each classification are included in the csv file classificationParameters.txt. The columns of this file are as follows: outFile: The name of the tab-separated text file that contains events for this classification. analysisType: A super-class describing the broad category of analysis parameters soundType: The name of the classification sampleRate: When events are processed, they are downsampled to this sample rate (in Hz) in order to make directional processing more efficient and precise FFTLength: The duration (in seconds) used for determining the size of the FFT during difar beamforming (i.e. creation of the DIFARGram). numFreqs: Not used during this voyage targetFreq: The midpoint of the frequency axis (in Hz) displayed in the DIFARGram Bandwidth: This describes the half-bandwidth (Hz) of the frequency axis of the DIFARGram. The frequency axis of the DIFARGram starts at targetFreq-bandwidth and ends at targetFreq + bandwidth frequencyBands_1: The lower frequency (Hz) used for determining RMS received level. frequencyBands_2: The upper frequency (Hz) used for determining RMS received level. preDetect: Duration of audio (in seconds) that will be loaded before the start of the event. The processed audio includes the time-bounds of the event marked by the acoustician as well as preDetect seconds before the start of the event. postDetect: Duration of audio (in seconds) that will be loaded after the end of the event. The processed audio includes the time-bounds of the event marked by the acoustician + postDetect seconds.

A spreadsheet detailing the filenames of the best left and/or right photos of blue whales photographed and individually identified during the New Zealand Australia Antarctic Ecosystems Voyage 2015. See http://www.marinemammals.gov.au/sorp/antarctic-blue-whale-project for further detail regarding the Antarctic blue whale voyage.

All photos taken during the NZ-Australia Antarctic Ecosystems Voyage to the Ross Sea 2015 in an attempt to get a best photo identification image of blue whales, killer whales, humpback whales and minke whales. Image collection location and other details such as photographer, species, date (UTC) can be found in excel spreadsheet.