PADOC

PADOC has been designed for cetologists and naturalists by Groupe de Recherche sur les Cétacés (GREC organization, https://www.cetaces.org/). It is available in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian.

During cetacean sightings, PADOC allows to study and record behaviors by logging various observations such as group structure, cetacean positions and movements (speed, heading), or surface events (breaches, blows, boat avoidance, social behaviors, etc). You can also log human actions and movements in order to be able to detect potential anthropogenic disturbances: with this app, you will collect a lot more information than with a paper form.

Time and position are automatically recorded with any logged input; CSV files containing all your data are generated so that they can be easily processed later on shore.

Between two sightings, the On-effort Survey mode provides you with a logbook, in which you can regularly indicate weather conditions and environmental data, such as wind speed, cetacean detectability or other parameters, so that you can save useful data even when no cetaceans are in sight.

GREC has implemented typical lists of species for various biogeographic regions. If you would like to have your study area listed into PADOC (or for any comment!), please contact GREC at [email protected]