Ten harbor seals were tracked via satellite tags in the St. Lawrence Estuary and at Sable Island from 1994 to 1998. The data includes geographic positions with timestamps and movement speeds, as well as dive profiles aggregated into daily 6-hour periods. Fisheries and Oceans Canada collected this data to study the species' foraging behavior.
Use Cases
- Model seasonal foraging behavior based on dive profiles aggregated into morning, day, evening, and night periods.
- Analyze movement patterns and speeds based on successive geographic locations.
- Compare habitat use between distinct sites like the St. Lawrence Estuary and Sable Island.
- Study the diving ecology of harbor seals based on depth-stratified frequency histograms.
Strengths
- Data covers a multi-year period from 1994 to 1998.
- Includes tracking data from ten individual seals across four distinct capture sites.
- Provides two complementary data types: movement tracks and aggregated dive profiles.
Limitations
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
- Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the specific capture sites.
Provenance
- Source
- Fisheries and Oceans Canada
- Collection Method
- Seals captured using gillnets and tracked with satellite tags.
- Time Range
- 1994 – 1998
- Freshness
- Last updated 2026-06-02 20:12:29.439926; freshness should be verified.
- Geography
- St. Lawrence Estuary (Bic, île Blanche, Métis-sur-Mer) and Sable Island, Canada