Passive acoustic monitoring of sperm whales during and after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

2011 ◽  
Vol 130 (4) ◽  
pp. 2537-2537
Author(s):  
Karlina Merkens ◽  
Mark A. McDonald ◽  
Simone Baumann-Pickering ◽  
Kaitlin Frasier ◽  
Sean M. Wiggins ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spill ◽  
Deepwater Horizon ◽  
Acoustic Monitoring ◽  
Sperm Whales ◽  
Passive Acoustic Monitoring ◽  
Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill ◽  
Passive Acoustic

From clicks to counts: Applying line-transect methods to passive acoustic monitoring of sperm whales in the Gulf of Alaska

2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (4) ◽  
pp. 2246-2246
Author(s):  
Tina M. Yack ◽  
Thomas F. Norris ◽  
Elizabeth Ferguson ◽  
Brenda K. Rone ◽  
Alexandre N. Zerbini
Keyword(s):  
Gulf Of Alaska ◽  
Acoustic Monitoring ◽  
Line Transect ◽  
Sperm Whales ◽  
Passive Acoustic Monitoring ◽  
Passive Acoustic

scholarly journals Cues, creaks, and decoys: using passive acoustic monitoring as a tool for studying sperm whale depredation

2015 ◽  
Vol 72 (5) ◽  
pp. 1621-1636 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Thode ◽  
Delphine Mathias ◽  
Janice Straley ◽  
Victoria O'Connell ◽  
Linda Behnken ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Low Frequency ◽  
Field Tests ◽  
Sperm Whale ◽  
Acoustic Monitoring ◽  
Sperm Whales ◽  
Passive Acoustic Monitoring ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Fishing Activity ◽  
Fishing Vessels ◽  
Passive Acoustic

Abstract Since 2003, a collaborative effort (SEASWAP) between fishers, scientists, and managers has researched how Alaskan sperm whales locate demersal longline fishing activity and then depredate sablefish from gear. Sperm whales constantly produce relatively low-frequency biosonar signals whenever foraging; therefore, over the past decade, passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) has become a basic tool, used for both measuring depredation activity and accelerating field tests of potential depredation countermeasures. This paper reviews and summarizes past published PAM research on SEASWAP, and then provides a detailed example of how PAM methods are currently being used to test countermeasures. The review covers two major research thrusts: (i) identifying acoustic outputs of fishing vessels that provide long-distance “cues” that attract whales to fishing activity; and (ii) validating whether distinctive “creak” sounds can be used to quantify and measure depredation rates, using both bioacoustic tags and statistical comparisons between visual and acoustic depredation estimates during federal sablefish surveys. The latter part of the paper then provides an example of how PAM is being used to study a particular potential countermeasure: an “acoustic decoy” which transmits fishing vessel acoustic cues to attract animals away from true fishing activity. The results of an initial 2011 field trial are presented to show how PAM was used to design the decoy signals and monitor the efficacy of the deployment. The ability of PAM to detect both whale presence and depredation behaviour has reduced the need to deploy researchers or other specialists on fishing cruises. Instead, volunteer fishers can deploy “user-friendly” acoustic recorders on their gear, greatly facilitating the testing of various deterrents, and providing the industry and regulators a convenient and unobtrusive tool for monitoring both the scale and long-term spread of this behaviour across the Alaskan fishery.

Assessing the Deepwater Horizon oil spill impact on marine mammal population through acoustics: Endangered sperm whales

2012 ◽  
Vol 131 (3) ◽  
pp. 2306-2314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Azmy S. Ackleh ◽  
George E. Ioup ◽  
Juliette W. Ioup ◽  
Baoling Ma ◽  
Joal J. Newcomb ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spill ◽  
Marine Mammal ◽  
Deepwater Horizon ◽  
Sperm Whales ◽  
Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Seasonal movements of Gulf of Mexico sperm whales following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the limitations of impact assessments

2020 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 111627
Author(s):  
Janelle L. Morano ◽  
Jamey T. Tielens ◽  
Charles A. Muirhead ◽  
Bobbi J. Estabrook ◽  
Patrick J. Sullivan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gulf Of Mexico ◽  
Oil Spill ◽  
Deepwater Horizon ◽  
Sperm Whales ◽  
Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill ◽  
Seasonal Movements

scholarly journals Assessing Seasonality and Density From Passive Acoustic Monitoring of Signals Presumed to be From Pygmy and Dwarf Sperm Whales in the Gulf of Mexico

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Hildebrand ◽  
Kaitlin E. Frasier ◽  
Simone Baumann-Pickering ◽  
Sean M. Wiggins ◽  
Karlina P. Merkens ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gulf Of Mexico ◽  
Acoustic Monitoring ◽  
Sperm Whales ◽  
Passive Acoustic Monitoring ◽  
Passive Acoustic

scholarly journals Clicking throughout the year: sperm whale clicks in relation to environmental conditions off the west coast of South Africa

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 475-494
Author(s):  
FW Shabangu ◽  
RK Andrew
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
West Coast ◽  
Sperm Whale ◽  
Acoustic Monitoring ◽  
Height Anomaly ◽  
Sperm Whales ◽  
Passive Acoustic Monitoring ◽  
The West ◽  
Passive Acoustic

Knowledge of cetacean occurrence and behaviour in southern African waters is limited, and passive acoustic monitoring has the potential to address this gap efficiently. Seasonal acoustic occurrence and diel-vocalizing patterns of sperm whales in relation to environmental conditions are described here using passive acoustic monitoring data collected off the west coast of South Africa. Four autonomous acoustic recorders (AARs) were deployed on 3 oceanographic moorings from July 2014 to January 2017. Sperm whale clicks were detected year round in most recording sites, with peaks in acoustic occurrence in summer and late winter through spring. Diel-vocalizing patterns were detected in winter, spring and summer. Higher percentages of sperm whale clicks were recorded by AARs deployed at 1100 m water depth compared to those concurrently deployed at 850 and 4500 m, likely inferring that the whales exhibited some preference to water depths around 1100 m. Acoustic propagation modelling suggested a maximum detection range of 83 km in winter for sperm whale clicks produced at 1100 m. Random forest models classified daylight regime, sea surface height anomaly and month of the year as the most important predictors of sperm whale acoustic occurrence. The continuous acoustic occurrence of sperm whales suggests that the study area supports large biomasses of prey to sustain this species’ food requirements year round. This is the first study to describe the seasonal acoustic occurrence and diel-vocalizing patterns of sperm whales off the west coast of South Africa, extending knowledge of the species previously available only through whaling records.

scholarly journals Sperm whale presence observed using passive acoustic monitoring from gliders of opportunity

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 133-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
P Cauchy ◽  
KJ Heywood ◽  
D Risch ◽  
ND Merchant ◽  
BY Queste ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Sperm Whale ◽  
Acoustic Monitoring ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Sperm Whales ◽  
Passive Acoustic Monitoring ◽  
The North ◽  
Western Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Passive Acoustic ◽  
North Western

Habitat use by the endangered Mediterranean sperm whale subpopulation remains poorly understood, especially in winter. The sustained presence of oceanographic autonomous underwater vehicles in the area presents an opportunity to improve observation effort, enabling collection of valuable sperm whale distribution data, which may be crucial to their conservation. Passive acoustic monitoring loggers were deployed on vertically profiling oceanographic gliders surveying the north-western Mediterranean Sea during winter 2012-2013 and June 2014. Sperm whale echolocation ‘usual click’ trains, characteristic of foraging activity, were detected and classified from the recordings, providing information about the presence of sperm whales along the glider tracks. Widespread presence of sperm whales in the north-western Mediterranean Sea was confirmed. Winter observations suggest different foraging strategies between the Ligurian Sea, where mobile and scattered individuals forage at all times of day, and the Gulf of Lion, where larger aggregations target intense oceanographic features in the open ocean such as fronts and mixing events, with reduced acoustic presence at dawn. This study demonstrates the ability to successfully observe sperm whale behaviour from passive acoustic monitoring gliders. We identified possible mission design changes to optimize data collected from passive acoustic monitoring glider surveys and significantly improve sperm whale population monitoring and habitat use.

scholarly journals Decadal Assessment of Sperm Whale Site-Specific Abundance Trends in the Northern Gulf of Mexico Using Passive Acoustic Data

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 454
Author(s):  
Kun Li ◽  
Natalia A. Sidorovskaia ◽  
Thomas Guilment ◽  
Tingting Tang ◽  
Christopher O. Tiemann
Keyword(s):  
Gulf Of Mexico ◽  
Oil Spill ◽  
Sperm Whale ◽  
Acoustic Monitoring ◽  
Sperm Whales ◽  
Site Specific ◽  
Acoustic Data ◽  
Regional Abundance ◽  
Passive Acoustic

Passive acoustic monitoring has been successfully used to study deep-diving marine mammal populations. To assess regional population trends of sperm whales in the northern Gulf of Mexico (GoM), including impacts of the Deepwater Horizon platform oil spill in 2010, the Littoral Acoustic Demonstration Center-Gulf Ecological Monitoring and Modeling (LADC-GEMM) consortium collected broadband acoustic data in the Mississippi Valley/Canyon area between 2007 and 2017 using bottom-anchored moorings. These data allow the inference of short-term and long-term variations in site-specific abundances of sperm whales derived from their acoustic activity. A comparison is made between the abundances of sperm whales at specific sites in different years before and after the oil spill by estimating the regional abundance density. The results show that sperm whales were present in the region throughout the entire monitoring period. A habitat preference shift was observed for sperm whales after the 2010 oil spill with higher activities at sites farther away from the spill site. A comparison of the 2007 and 2015 results shows that the overall regional abundance of sperm whales did not recover to pre-spill levels. The results indicate that long-term spatially distributed acoustic monitoring is critical in characterizing sperm whale population changes and in understanding how environmental stressors impact regional abundances and the habitat use of sperm whales.

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