The Map Tool: Maps and Fisheries
Our Map Environment Video Tutorial will take you through all the steps below.
Navigation
When you arrive at the main screen for Maps and Fisheries, you are presented with a map and screen that should look like the below. The three floating windows display:
- Map Layers. You can select among four base maps and overlay any of the relevant political or RFMO boundaries (Click here to see a list of maps and their sources). The species ranges selection will only be enabled once you have queried an area and have a Results window from which to select a species.
- My Fisheries. This displays the fisheries which you have created in your account. Double-click on one to zoom to it.
- Map Tools. These tools enable you to add, manipulate, delete, and query fisheries in order to produce bird results.
At the top of the screen are a set of navigation buttons which will take you back to the Home Page, My Fisheries and Explore by Species. The second set of buttons toggle the 3 floating map windows (Map Layers, My Fisheries, Map Tools) on and off. Once you have designated a fishery and queried for a list of birds, a final Results window will also appear in this top field.
Actively selected fisheries are displayed in BLUE. Existing, but inactive, fisheries are displayed in ORANGE.
You may find that having multiple Map Layers turned on will slow down the navigation, panning and zooming features. In this case, it might be helpful to turn them off once you have used them to guide you to a specific area.
Depending on your current browser settings, you may also find that using the zoom function of your browser's window will make seeing all the windows and working in the map space slightly easier. Note, however that going back to previous settings might necessitate reloading the app to trigger all the windows to reappear.
Creating a Fishery or Area to Obtain a Bird List
You can establish a fishery polygon in two ways:
- Freehand draw a polygon
Use the ''Draw'' button to get a bullseye cursor which will allow you to establish vertices. Click to establish a vertex and double-click to finish the polygon. A pop-up dialog will ask you about the attributes of your fishery. The only required information is a name (minimum 5 characters). Click ok when you are done, and the fishery should appear in the My Fisheries window. Use the ''Reshape'' button to change the location of vertices for a polygon. Once the button is darkened, click on the desired fishery, and orange vertices will appear that can be dragged to new locations. When you are finished click any of the other Tools to complete the action.
- Import a shapefile(.shp is the supported file type)
You can drag a .shp file directly into the map area. If you click on ''Import'' you will receive some further information, repeated here: ''The file must be in decimal coordinates (WGS84 also known as EPSG:4326). There is no need to include the '.dbf' or other parts of the shapefile. These will be ignored.''
Once you have bounded a polygon with one of these two methods, you will asked to provide some specifics for your fishery so that you can save it with some details. The dialog box will look like the below. If you later wish to edit the attributes of this fishery, you can click on ''Update," and then click on the fishery; if you wish to edit the boundaries of this fishery you can do so by using the ''Reshape'' button in the Map Tools window, and then clicking on the fishery. Hit return to end the reshaping function.
Once you have created a fishery and received the dialog box confirming its creation, it should appear in the list in the My Fisheries dialog box. If it does not, try zooming in or out; refreshing your app window may also solve this problem.
Identifying, Manipulating, and Deleting Fisheries
Depressing the ''Identify'' button and then clicking on a polygon will bring up the fishery attributes which you assigned in the dialog box (name, organization etc).
Use the ''Reshape'' button to change the location of vertices for a polygon. Once the button is depressed, click on the desired fishery, and orange vertices will appear that can be dragged to new locations. When you are finished press Return, or click any of the other Tools to complete the action.
Click the ''Delete'' button to enable deleting. After depressing the ''Delete'' button, highlight the fishery you wish to delete by clicking on it. A dialog box will confirm that you would like to delete the fishery.
Using the "Bird List" button will query the mapped distributions for each of 378 species looking for species that have a range which intersects your polygon. Depress the ‘’Bird List’’ button and then click on the fishery you wish to query. You will get an intermediate screen telling you that the database is being queried, and when it has completed, you will have a fourth floating window on your map, the Results window.
The Bird List can also be produced from the ''Identify'' dialog box.
The ''Bird List'' button will produce a Results Window. This window provides basic information of each species that was returned with your polygon query. You can produce two kinds of reports from these results (1) Summary Report and (2) Comprehensive Species Report (see below under Producing Reports). The exact table you see here can also be downloaded as a .csv file with the small button on the far right.
You can resize the box using the small gear button, and specifying the height and width of the window.
By clicking on the column headings, the data can be sorted by the values (low to high) in that column. Clicking a second time changes the order (high to low). A small black arrow indicates which column is driving the sort. In the example below, the data is sorted by the Documented Bycatch column.
You can display a species range map by selecting the radio button for a species in the leftmost column. In the example above, Zino's Petrel has been selected. You may want to click the Results Window off to best see the full range. You can turn off the range by unchecking the ''Species Ranges'' box in the Map Layers Window.
You can eliminate some of the columns by using the small plus sign in the upper right corner of the inner scroll bar. Clicking on it will produce a dropdown menu of the columns which you can uncheck. For more information on the origin of these values see the Documentation section. If you previously had a column unchecked, this choice will be maintained until you check it again.
The final 2 right-hand columns are not sortable, but provide a way to customize your report outputs. Because these accounts, particularly those with lots of gear references, can become lengthy, you may wish to produce reports just for a selection of species, or turn off some range maps. Your Print Preview function can help you preview the volume of pages, and these checkboxes can help you manage the report.
They are:
- Include species: a checked box for a species will result in the inclusion of the species in any subsequent Summary or Comprehensive Reports produced.
- Include Map: a checked box for a species will result in the range map for a selected species included in the species account in any subsequent Summary or Comprehensive Reports produced.
Hiding/Showing the Results Window
You can hide the Results window by using the upper right-hand close button (x), or by selecting the Results table icon in the top toolbar. Until another fishery is queried, the last query performed remains in the Results window.
At the top left of the Results window are two icons, one each for the Summary Report and the Comprehensive Report.
Clicking on "Create summary report" opens a new tab and displays a list of all the species shown in the Results window with the same basic information.
Clicking on "Create comprehensive report" opens a new tab, and produces full accounts with range maps (if you selected them in the results window) and all references. The Comprehensive Species Report includes foraging ecology, phenology, and behavioral information, as well as known interactions with specific gear types. For information on the precise definitions of the terms used, please see the Definitions page. For highly coastal species (e.g. Black Tern Chlidonias niger), it may be difficult to discern the range on the map; the Ecology Notes text should help. For more information on interpreting your results, please see How to Interpret Results or our Interpretation Video Tutorial.
From either the Summary or Comprehensive Report tabs, you can print through using the small printer icon in the upper right, or through your browser.
** Caution: these accounts, particularly those with lots of gear references, can become lengthy, so please Print Preview or note the number of pages in your print dialog box if you are interested in having a hard copy. You may wish to print just the Summary Report and refer to the Comprehensive Report in an onscreen PDF.