Whale and Dolphin Tracker

Pacific Whale Foundation

About this app

Log sightings and identify species of commonly sighted whales and dolphins from any location around the world. Whale and Dolphin Tracker provides a platform where both professional scientists and members of the public can participate in research and conservation by contributing their marine wildlife sightings. By submitting your sightings you will add to a global database that will help researchers determine patterns of species distribution and how these species interact with their environment.

Features:

-Log sightings in real-time during your trip.
-Use the built-in GPS logger to create a full GPS track of your trip.
-Upload photos from your mobile device to submit with your sighting.
-Maintain full access to your submitted data through your Whale and Dolphin Tracker account.
-View global sightings submitted by all users on a live sightings map updated in real time.

Contribute to research:

-Crowdsourcing allows for a larger scope of data collection than what is possible for dedicated researchers to achieve.
-Greater coverage in both time and space increases the likelihood of documenting rare and/or understudied marine wildlife.
-Citizen science creates ocean stewards and leads to a greater awareness of marine wildlife.

How to submit a sighting:

- Use the app to record GPS location of any sightings of whales, dolphins, and other marine wildlife.
- Help researchers account for survey effort by associating a track with each sighting. Simply start the GPS track when you depart land and stop the track upon your return. Complete GPS tracks enable calculations of sightings per distance and are valuable for research on distribution of marine animals.
- Upload photos associated with your sightings directly from your mobile device. Photos will be used by researchers to confirm species identification and will be added to photo-identification databases, where applicable.

Ratings and reviews

This app isn't up to date with sightings. You can't pinpoint a location. You can apparently only enter sightings from a research boat, not from the shore or vessel such as a dinghy. Required answers include the boat's name, when it left the harbor, etc., no leeway for a different sighting situation. Seeing a small group of orcas from the shore, I wanted to learn what group it might be, and record my sighting. I wasn't able to do either with this app. I had to sign up to learn that.

Seems very useful for recording cetacean sightings; being able to review migration patterns on a map is quite handy. Upsides: --great list of cetaceans, with images when selecting whale you've possibly spotted. 👍 --useful outside of NA 👍 --ability to see all your sightings in a region on a map. 👍 Would improve/add: --Would benefit from dropping pin on map for coordinates, much faster. --needs more pinnipeds (NZ fur seal) --☀️/🌙 --land-based survey options --public/private list options

Terrible app, requires too much info when location is adequate, always thinks you are on a boat, map of sightings is bad, doesn't show islands just a few dots on a blank map. Not much help for so called experts.

What’s new

Enable updated location logic for map and sightings collection.