Standardize species field values across input apps

[scottveirs]

Recent examinations of text string values for the Acartia type field indicates some inconsistencies. Standardization of the values for the fields we use in Acartia to indicate species is important for consistency in visualizations and other data analyses.

A rough list of these inconsistencies can be derived from screenshots of the legend for the draft Acartia layer in ERMA Northwest and a small subset of the fields from a Sep 2023 Acartia data snapshot (Google spreadsheet):

From this a short-list of high-priority standardization actions could include:

• [ ] Fin whales: remove "Sighting" from Android field value? Are "finback whales" the same as "fin whales"?
• [ ] Gray whales: standardize spelling as "gray" or "grey"
• [ ] Humpbacks: standardize on "humback" vs "humback whale"
• [ ] Killer Whale: standardize species vs ecotype scheme across mobile and web apps
  • [ ] General KW (e.g. ecotype unknown or TBD): "Killer Whale (Orca)" vs "Killer Whale" vs "Orca" (whalealertoa +?) vs "Killer Whale (Orca) Sighting:" (AK and early Cascadia?) vs "Orca sighting:"
  • [ ] SRKWs: "Southern Resident Killer Whale" vs "Southern Resident Killer Whale Sighting:"
  • [ ] Bigg's KWs: Add a standardized ecotype or species label? (Currently Biggs without an apostrophe in Acartia comment field)

[vzett]

This should be somewhat resolved from the Whale Alert side now.

[scottveirs]

@vzett Could you provide the values for the type (i.e. species) field that you current POST to the Acartia API for the following categories? (These are the soniferous subset of the broader lists of species that I'm organizing/standardizing in this shared Google sheet...)

Orca (unknown KW ecotype)
Southern Resident KW
Bigg's KW (transient)
Humpback
Gray
Minke
Harbor porpoise
Dall's porpoise
Pacific white-side dolphin

Given the recent paper on making SRKWs and Bigg's KWs separate species, maybe we should eventually slightly modify the Whale Alert (and Ocean Alert and Cascadia) UIs accordingly?

[scottveirs]

If you can provide exact values for each of those species/categories that emit sounds, @vzett , then @skanderm will know what to POST when we begin to add Orcasound acoustic detections to Acartia.

Also, consistency in the type field values across data providers now should make it seamless for Whale Alert (and other Conserve.io apps) to eventually GET acoustic occurrence data via the Acartia API...