Data from: The diffusion of cooperative and solo bubble net feeding in Canadian Pacific humpback whales

Description of the data and file structure
A network-based diffusion analysis of humpback whale bubble net feeding in the Kitimat Fjord System (NE Pacific). Code and data also stored on GitHub: https://github.com/eadinomahony/humpback-bubble-netting-NBDA

Recommended citation:

Wray, J.+, O'Mahony, É.+, Baer, G., Robinson, N., Dundas, A., Gaggiotti, O.E., Rendell, L., Keen, E.M. 2025. The diffusion of cooperative and solo bubble net feeding in Canadian Pacific humpback whales. Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
^+^Shared lead authorship.

Maintained by Éadin N. O'Mahony ([email protected]).

A project in collaboration with the Gitga'at First Nation and the North Coast Cetacean Society (www.bcwhales.org). We thank the Gitga'at First Nation, Kitasoo/Xai'xais First Nations, the Haisla First Nation and the Heiltsuk First Nation for their stewardship and collaboration. This work was carried out through a research agreement between the North Coast Cetacean Society and the Gitga'at Oceans and Lands Department; and data was collected under the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) research permit DFO XR 83 2014.

Positionality and reflexivity statement
We comprise an international group of researchers with a range of expertise in various biological disciplines who are collaborating on this project asking questions about sociality and culture in humpback whales foraging within the traditional territories of the Gitga’at First Nation, the Kitasoo and Xai’xais First Nations, the Gitxaała First Nation and the Haisla First Nation. We have an equal gender balance but come from a diverse set of backgrounds and perspectives. Authors NR and AD are Gitga’at members who have been dedicated to the study and protection of marine mammals in Gitga’at territory for approximately two decades. Author JW is the co-founder and CEO of the North Coast Cetacean Society (NCCS) and EMK, ÉOM and GB are researchers within NCCS, which has been collaborating with the Gitga’at First Nation as an organisation since 2001, when permission to conduct research in the territory was granted and specific research agreements established. Authors EMK, ÉOM, GB, JW, LR and OEG recognise our intersecting social identities – we are all white and either living and working as settlers in Canada, or based at research institutions in Europe, from where we travel to spend time working with the Gitga’at in their unceded territory. We are striving to decolonise our research practices and acknowledge that we have much work to do on this still. Authors EMK, ÉOM, LR and OEG work in an academic system which affords us unearned privileges through its significant history of colonisation. All authors recognise that the biological sciences strive for objectivity, but we collectively believe it is critical in the process to decolonise ecology and evolution research that we address our inherent biases and belief systems. We therefore wish to state that we are motivated by a deep care for Earth’s biodiversity, and in particular hope to see cetacean species co-existing with our own in perpetuity. We advocate for other researchers within ecology and evolution research (and beyond) to self-reflect on their own positionalities and relationships to land and community. We thank the Gitga’at Oceans and Lands Department and the Gitga’at community for their continued support and collaboration on whale research and conservation.

Files and variables
File: ILV-update.csv
Description: Individual level variables for unique humpback whales documented in the Kitimat Fjord System of British Columbia, Canada. Where 'NA' occurs indicates that humpback whale was, for example, not a solo bubble netter or we do not have a blow sample and therefore the genetic sex of that individual.

Variables
id = unique whale identifier
n.years = number of years that whale has been observed
n.sits = number of sightings
grp_mean = the mean group size across all sightings of that individual
stage_og = life stage (A = adult,M = mother)
first = first year seen
SF.total = total site fidelity
earliest = earliest day of year sighting
latest = latest day of year sighting
arrival = mean arrival day of year to fjord system
departure = mean departure day of year
min.stay = shortest stay duration
SSFI = site fidelity index
mom = 0 - never documented with calf, mom - documented before with calf
n.calves = number of calves in total
bnfe = 1 - known bubble netter, 0 - not known to bubble net
bnf.year1 = first year seen bubble netting
bnf.sit1 = first bubble netting sighting ID
bnf.demon = bubble netter demonstrator in NBDA
bnf.rate = rate of bubble netting observed
bnfesolo = 1 - known solo bubble netter, 0 - not known to solo bubble net
solo.year1 = first year seen solo bubble netting
solo.sit1 = first solo BNF sighting
fe.rate = overall foraging rate
years = years seen
momyears = years in which seen with calf
bnfyears = years in which observed bubble netting
bnfsits = bubble netting sighting IDs
soloyears = years seen solo BNF
solosits = solo bubble netting sighting IDs
sits = all sighting IDs for that whale
ROA = ranked order of acquisition
SOLO_ROA = ranked order of acquisition for solo BNF
Sample.Name = blow sample identifier
Genetic.Sex = blow sample determined sex
Sex = female = -1 while male = 1
File: Sightings.csv
Description: Description of each unique sighting ID (date, station, group size, number of bubble netters, if the sighting included a mom / a calf, whether it was a bubble netting event or not and whether it was a feeding event or not, and what the overall group behaviour (bhv) was). Latitude, longitude, time of sighting and km distance into the fjord ('km.out') were variables not used in the analysis of this study and therefore are left as NA (not applicable)

File: events.csv
Description: Each row represents a unique whale (id) within a sighting (groupid). Other variables include the date (ymd), year, month, day, day of year (doy), year fraction (yfrac), time (as NA because not used for this analysis), data collection platform (platform), group id for that sighting (group), number of whales in the group (n), number of bubble netters in the group (n_bnf), latitude and longitude also as NA because they are not used in the analysis, behavioural state (bhvr) and life stage (stage, where A is adult, M is mother and 0 is unknown).

Code/software
R scripts available here: https://github.com/eadinomahony/humpback-bubble-netting-NBDA/tree/main

Access information
Other publicly accessible locations of the data:

https://github.com/eadinomahony/humpback-bubble-netting-NBDA/tree/main