Abstract
The International Whaling Commission’s (IWC) Database‐Estimation and Software System (DESS) was designed to standardise IWC line‐transect survey data storage and streamline abundance estimation, including abundance estimation by small management area to inform decision making. Not only was DESS designed to accommodate all International Decade of Cetacean Research (IDCR) and Southern Ocean Whale and Ecosystem Research (SOWER) surveys, but also national surveys, such as the Japanese surveys in the Antarctic and North Pacific, and multi‐national surveys conducted in the North Atlantic. The standard software for estimating abundance was program Distance, which could estimate abundance in designed survey blocks, however, management procedures required estimation not just in survey blocks but also in smaller regions that could be defined by the user. This added a spatial component to data selection which led to the inclusion of a geographical information system (GIS). This paper describes the data stored in DESS and the features available for data retrieval and analysis.
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