WATCHES

WATCHES contains one row, per date, per individual, whenever there was an intention to observe a given individual on a given date. It also contains one row for every date there was an ad-hoc observation not associated with any particular individual. There is not a row for every day every individual was observed because SokweDB contains data on individuals collected due to proximity with the intended target of observation.

Examples of intended observations include the a follow of a focal and the regular observation of individuals at the feeding station. WATCHES contains one row for each follow, and contains one row per day, per individual observed at the feeding station.

Examples of ad-hoc observations not associated with any one individual are observations of pantgrunts recorded during happenstance encounters.

The Type column is used to distinguish and identify the various important categories: follows, feeding station observations, etc. Each Type has it’s own set of requirements that related data must conform to. The available Type values are:

``F``

Each row represents a date during which observers were assigned to follow a focal individual.

A follow may or may not have any related observations, related EVENTS rows.

The system will generate a warning when a WATCHES row does not have a ARRIVALS related row that records the presence of the focal: does not have a related EVENTS row where the Behavior code is ARR, and a ROLES row, related to the event, where the ROLES.Participant has the same value as the follow’s Focal column.

A follow must have at least one related FOLLOW_OBSERVERS rows, to record the observers scheduled to conduct the follow. This condition is checked on transaction commit.

The Date must be during a period when the watched individual was under study, on or after the watched indiviual’s BIOGRAPHY_DATA.EntryDate and on or before the watched individual’s BIOGRAPHY_DATA.DepartDate.

The combination of Type, Focal and Date must be unique.

WID (Watch period ID)

A unique, automatically generated, positive integer which serves to identify the row. The value of this column cannot be changed. This column may not be NULL.

Focal (Focal animal id)

The BIOGRAPHY_DATA.AnimID identifying the individual under observation.

The designated individual is the focal, or the individual observed at the feeding station, etc., depending on the Type value.

This column may not be NULL.

CommID

A code for the community the observers are associated with and intended to follow; the COMM_IDS.CommID of the community. This is not necessarily the community the focal is a member of, although it usually is. The value of this column cannot be changed. This column may not be NULL.

Date

The date the follow was conducted. This date may not be before 1960-07-14. This column may not be NULL.

Type

The type of watch period.

One of the following values:

``F``

See overview of the WATCHES table, above, for more information.

This column may not be NULL.

Notes

Free form textual notes on the follow. This column may be empty text. It need not contain characters, but it may not contain only whitespace characters. This column may not be NULL.

Page last generated: 2026-06-12 16:40:37 UTC