Support from the U.S. National Science Foundation and the National Oceanographic Partnership Program is fostering the continued growth and refinement of OBIS-SEAMAP (http://seamap.env.duke.edu). We currently host over 2.25 million records from 237 datasets on the global distribution of marine mammals, sea turtles and seabirds. And, to better meet the needs of our user community, we recently rolled out a new and more intuitive interface. We would like to invite you to join our community and become a data provider. We welcome all data sets, including both systematic and opportunistic observations of marine mammals, sea turtles and seabirds, from around the world. We are also seeking photos for many of our species profiles. Please have a look at our website and the information provided below. What is OBIS-SEAMAP? Established by the Census of Marine Life program in 2001, OBIS-SEAMAP is a consortium of organizations and individuals who share a vision to make marine biogeographic data freely available over the World Wide Web. OBIS-SEAMAP is an interactive, online digital database of marine mammal, seabird and sea turtle data. The global database includes observations made from line transect surveys, photo-identification work, shore-based counts, strandings and satellite telemetry. Why does it matter? We believe that, by making these observations available to the global research community, we can improve our understanding, management and conservation of marine mammals, seabirds, and sea turtles. Why should I contribute? By publishing your data sets on OBIS-SEAMAP you can: 1) Reach a broad audience with the results of your research; 2) Highlight publications that have resulted from collection of these data (OBIS-SEAMAP provides a convenient means for data dissemination and outreach to other researchers and resource managers); 3) Compose customized maps of your data; 4) View your data in the context of oceanographic observations, other data sets, and in the context of global distribution maps; 5) Have an off-site archive of your data. Interested? Contributing your data to OBIS-SEAMAP is very easy. You can simply send it to us or upload it yourself if you prefer. The minimum fields required are species, location (latitude and longitude), and date/time. We particularly welcome datasets that include observation effort (such as survey track lines) and other in-situ data. What about data ownership and privacy? Your data cannot be used in any report or publication without your written permission. All users must agree to our explicit Terms of Use Agreement before viewing your data. Under this Agreement, users may NOT use any data in a publication or product without the express permission of you, the data provider. For more information, please visit Data Provider FAQ (http://seamap.env.duke.edu/about/provider_faq). We welcome your inquiries, comments and suggestions, and look forward to working with you! The OBIS-SEAMAP Team Andy Read, Pat Halpin, Ei Fujioka, Ben Best, Connie Kot, Lucie Hazen, Ben Donnelly, Erin LaBrecque, Kim Urian, and Andrew DiMatteo ____________________ Lucie Hazen Research Associate Duke University Marine Lab ljhazen@duke.edu 252-504-7633