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Metadata: 2025, Kent Wildlife Trust, Marine Internships, Historical Dolphin Sightings Data Review
Abstract:
The Kent Dolphin Project is a collaborative effort between Sussex Dolphin Project and Adonis Blue Environmental Consultants, part of the Kent Wildlife Trust Group. As part of the Kent Dolphin Project, this report reviews historical cetacean and pinniped sightings in Kent’s coastal waters, an area of high anthropogenic activity within the Greater Thames Estuary. Cetaceans play vital roles in marine ecosystems but face pressures such as bycatch, vessel strikes, and underwater noise. Research along the Kent coastline has been limited, a gap the Kent Dolphin Project aims to address through citizen science initiatives including landwatch sessions and opportunistic sightings. Data from multiple sources spanning 120 years recorded 18 cetacean species, with harbour porpoise most frequently observed and Dungeness identified as a potential hotspot. These findings provide a baseline but highlight gaps for species such as white-beaked dolphin. Preliminary project data show promise, with over 30 volunteers trained and sightings of humpback whale, bottlenose dolphin, and harbour porpoise. Recommendations include sustaining volunteer engagement, expanding educational outreach, and strengthening research through environmental analysis and behavioural monitoring. Continued data collection and community involvement will be critical to improving understanding and informing conservation strategies for cetaceans in Kent’s waters. The following report was produced as part of the Coast Explorer Internship; a collaborative project between Adonis Blue Environmental Consultant (Kent Wildlife Trust), The Crown Estate, Vattenfall, and the Canterbury City Council, which is funded by The Crown Estate and managed by Adonis Blue Environmental Consultant.
Data holder:
The Crown Estate
| Other details | ||
| Internal code | Internally assigned metadata identifier | 19038 |
| Title | The title is used to provide a brief and precise description of the dataset such as 'Date', 'Originating organisation/programme', 'Location' and 'Type of survey'. All acronyms and abbreviations should be reproduced in full. | 2025, Kent Wildlife Trust, Marine Internships, Historical Dolphin Sightings Data Review |
| File Identifier | The File Identifier is a code, preferably a GUID, that is globally unique and remains with the same metadata record even if the record is edited or transferred between portals or tools. | 28b7987e-3aff-4ff9-8f73-7098fa952d1b |
| Resource Identifier | This is the code assigned by the data owner. | TCE-4488 |
| Resource type | The resource type will likely be a dataset but could also be a series (collection of datasets with a common specification) or a service. | series |
| Start date | This describes the date the resource starts. This may only be the year if month and day are not known | 2025-06-22 |
| End date | This describes the date the resource ends. This may only be the year if month and day are not known | 2025-12-23 |
| Frequency of updates | This describes the frequency with which the resource is modified or updated i.e. a monitoring programme that samples once per year has a frequency that is described as 'annually'. | notPlanned |
| Abstract | The abstract provides a clear and brief statement of the content of the resource. | The Kent Dolphin Project is a collaborative effort between Sussex Dolphin Project and Adonis Blue Environmental Consultants, part of the Kent Wildlife Trust Group. As part of the Kent Dolphin Project, this report reviews historical cetacean and pinniped sightings in Kent’s coastal waters, an area of high anthropogenic activity within the Greater Thames Estuary. Cetaceans play vital roles in marine ecosystems but face pressures such as bycatch, vessel strikes, and underwater noise. Research along the Kent coastline has been limited, a gap the Kent Dolphin Project aims to address through citizen science initiatives including landwatch sessions and opportunistic sightings. Data from multiple sources spanning 120 years recorded 18 cetacean species, with harbour porpoise most frequently observed and Dungeness identified as a potential hotspot. These findings provide a baseline but highlight gaps for species such as white-beaked dolphin. Preliminary project data show promise, with over 30 volunteers trained and sightings of humpback whale, bottlenose dolphin, and harbour porpoise. Recommendations include sustaining volunteer engagement, expanding educational outreach, and strengthening research through environmental analysis and behavioural monitoring. Continued data collection and community involvement will be critical to improving understanding and informing conservation strategies for cetaceans in Kent’s waters. The following report was produced as part of the Coast Explorer Internship; a collaborative project between Adonis Blue Environmental Consultant (Kent Wildlife Trust), The Crown Estate, Vattenfall, and the Canterbury City Council, which is funded by The Crown Estate and managed by Adonis Blue Environmental Consultant. |
| Lineage | Lineage includes the background information, history of the sources of data, data quality statements and methods. | Sightings data of cetaceans. Quality of the data cannot be guaranteed due to much of it being sumbitted as citizen science data, which without further verification may not be accuarte. The data has been used to draw interprative results. Data was collected from a range of publicly available sources, along with some non-publicly available sources (inclduing from the Sea Watch Foundation and KEIFCA). Data was collected from the MDE, NBN Atlas, ICES, NHM Strandings Database. Data was georeferenced and plotted on ArcGIS to create maps. |
| Related keywords | ||
| Keyword | General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Fishing by-catch |
| General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Acoustic noise in the water column | |
| General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Population distribution - demography | |
| Geographical coverage | ||
| North | The northern-most limit of the data resource in decimal degrees | 52 |
| East | The eastern-most limit of the data resource in decimal degrees | 4 |
| South | The southern-most limit of the data resource in decimal degrees | 50 |
| Responsible organisations | ||
| Role | The point of contact is person or organisation with responsibility for the creation and maintenance of the metadata for the resource. | pointOfContact |
| Organisation name | The Crown Estate | |
| hannah.newnham03@gmail.com | ||
| Role | The custodian is the person or organisation that accepts responsibility for the resource and ensures appropriate care and maintenance. If a dataset has been lodged with a Data Archive Centre for maintenance then this organisation is be entered here. | custodian |
| Organisation name | The Crown Estate | |
| Phone | +44 020 7851 5000 | |
| enquiries@thecrownestate.co.uk | ||
| Role | The originator is the person or organisation who created, collected or produced the resource. | originator |
| Organisation name | Kent Wildlife Trust | |
| max.renton@adonisblue.org.uk | ||
| Role | The distributor is the person or organisation that distributes the resource. | distributor |
| Organisation name | The Crown Estate | |
| Phone | +44 020 7851 5000 | |
| enquiries@thecrownestate.co.uk | ||
| Role | The owner is the person or organisation that owns the resource. | owner |
| Organisation name | The Crown Estate | |
| mde@thecrownestate.co.uk | ||
| Resource locators | ||
| Locator URL | Web address (URL) that links to the resource | https://www.marinedataexchange.co.uk/details/TCE-4488/summary |
| Web address (URL) that links to the resource | https://www.marinedataexchange.co.uk | |
| Dataset constraints | ||
| 20.1 Limitations on Public Access - Access constraints | This states `otherRestrictions` from ISO vocabulary RestrictionCode and is an INSPIRE/GEMINI requirement. | otherRestrictions |
| 20.2 Limitations on Public Access - Other constraints | Data must be used in accordance with the MDE Terms of Use. | |
| 21.1 Conditions for Access and Use - Use constraints | This states `otherRestrictions` from ISO vocabulary RestrictionCode and is an INSPIRE/GEMINI requirement. | otherRestrictions |
| 21.2 Conditions for Access and Use - Other constraints | This states any constraints on use of the data. Multiple conditions can be recorded for different parts of the data resource. If no conditions apply, then `No condtions apply` is recorded. This uses free text. | Data must be used in accordance with the MDE Terms of Use. |
| Version info | ||
| Date of publication | The publication date of the resource or if previously unpublished the date that the resource was made publicly available via the MEDIN network. | 2026-02-27 |
| Harvest date | The date which this record has been (re)harvested from the provider. | 2026-04-19 |
| Metadata date | The date when the content of this metadata record was last updated. | 2026-02-27 |
| Metadata standard name | The name of the metadata standard used to create this metadata | MEDIN |
| Metadata standard version | The version of the MEDIN Discovery Metadata Standard used to create the metadata record | 3.1.2 |