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Features of interest from a multi-season satellite survey of baleen whales on the West Antarctic Peninsula

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Abstract

The application of very high-resolution satellite imagery for the purpose of studying wildlife, particularly in remote regions, has gained significant traction in recent years. With this, there has been an exponential increase in the volume of satellite data collected, which has fostered a shift towards the use of automated systems to increase processing efficiency. However, these automated systems require manually annotated data on which to be trained, which is lacking due to the time required to manually annotate satellite imagery and the lack of published records to collaboratively build large enough training datasets. Here, we present a dataset that describes a total of 819 annotated and classified Features of Interest (FOIs) from a multi-season baleen whale-focussed survey of Wilhelmina Bay on the Western Antarctic Peninsula. These data are comprised of FOIs that have been annotated and classified based on existing protocols by seven individual observers who scanned ~1,900 km2 of WorldView-3 imagery acquired between 2018 and 2022 to expedite the creation of training datasets for automated detection models.

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Data availability

All data30 presented here are freely available from the NERC UK Polar Data Centre (https://doi.org/10.5285/ab19aaba-12d6-44a7-89a3-7b45af0343ed).

Code availability

No custom code was implemented during the generation of this dataset.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. British Antarctic Survey, High Cross, Madingley Road, CB3 0ET, Cambridge, UK

    C. C. G. Bamford, H. Cubaynes, P. J. Clarke, E. Longden & J. A. Jackson

  2. Australian Antarctic Division, Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, Australian Government, Channel Highway, Kingston, 7050, Australia

    N. Kelly

  3. School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, Sanderson Building, Robert Stevenson Road, The King’s Building, Edinburgh, EH9 3FB, UK

    P. J. Clarke

  4. Sea Mammal Research Unit, Scottish Oceans Institute, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9XL, UK

    E. Longden

  5. MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre/ARNET – Aquatic Research Network, Regional Agency for the Development of Research, Technology and Innovation (ARDITI), Funchal, Madeira, Portugal

    M. Weyn

  6. MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre/ARNET – Aquatic Research Network, Institute for Research and Advanced Training (IIFA), University of Évora, Évora, Portugal

    M. Weyn

  7. Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Madeira, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal

    M. Weyn

  8. Department of Biology, University of Évora, Pólo de Mitra, Apartado 94, Évora, 7002-554, Portugal

    M. Weyn

  9. Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, The Lodge, Potton Road, Sandy, SG19 2DL, UK

    G. Perry

  10. APEM Ltd, Riverview, A17 Embankment Business Park, Heaton Mersey, Stockport, SK4 3GN, UK

    H. Snead

  11. Department of Biological Sciences, University of New Brunswick, Saint John, NB, Canada

    L. Fouda

  12. Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6, Canada

    G. Macfarlane

Authors

  1. C. C. G. Bamford
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  2. H. Cubaynes
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  3. N. Kelly
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  4. P. J. Clarke
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  5. E. Longden
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  6. M. Weyn
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  7. G. Perry
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  8. H. Snead
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  9. L. Fouda
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  10. G. Macfarlane
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  11. J. A. Jackson
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Contributions

Conceptualisation: C.C.G.B. and J.A.J.; Methodology: C.C.G.B., J.A.J., N.K. and H.C.; Image review: P.C., E.L., M.W., G.P., H.S., L.F. and G.M.; Writing: C.C.G.B., N.K., H.C. and J.A.J. This work was supported by an Innovation Voucher from the British Antarctic Survey and grants from the World Wildlife Fund (GB107301) and NC-International NERC (NE/T012439/1).

Corresponding author

Correspondence to
C. C. G. Bamford.

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Bamford, C.C.G., Cubaynes, H., Kelly, N. et al. Features of interest from a multi-season satellite survey of baleen whales on the West Antarctic Peninsula.
Sci Data (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-06463-x

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