Beluga Whale Dive Behavior and Migration Timing in Cumberland Sound, 1998-2008

Cumberland Sound, Nunavut, is the study area for this dataset on endangered beluga whales. It contains satellite telemetry data from two time periods (1998–1999 and 2006–2008) used to analyze dive behavior and migration timing. The data was created by Kasey P. Ryan and last updated in May 2026.

Use Cases

• Modeling seasonal variation in dive depth based on day of year and environmental factors mentioned in the description.
• Comparing foraging behavior shifts between time periods based on the proportion of deep versus shallow dives.
• Analyzing migration timing variability relative to sea ice formation using latitudinal thresholds and transect lines.
• Investigating the relationship between whale movement, bottom depth, and sex using mixed-effects models as described.

Strengths

• Data spans two distinct time periods (1998–1999 and 2006–2008), enabling temporal comparison.
• Analysis includes multiple factors: seasonal progression, ice cover, bottom depth, and sex.
• Dataset is licensed under CC-BY-4.0, permitting open sharing and adaptation.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The primary data file is a 2.0 MB DOCX document, which may require extraction or conversion to access structured data.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Satellite telemetry tracking of beluga whales.

Time Range

1998–1999 and 2006–2008

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-26 04:37:18; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Cumberland Sound, Nunavut, Canada