Sound production behavior of individual North Atlantic right whales: implications for passive acoustic monitoring

Parks, Susan E.; Searby, Amanda; Célérier, Aurélie; Johnson, Mark; Nowacek, Douglas P.; Tyack, Peter L.

doi:10.3354/esr00368

Cited by 107 publications

(120 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Parks et al (2011) reported a BCI of 130 s for a tagged whale, while an earlier study by calculated a BCI of 90 s for surface active groups (SAGs). Note that those BCIs included all call types, while the BCI here is specific to gunshots.…”

Section: Comparison Of Gunshot Characteristics Among Right Whale Speciesmentioning

confidence: 97%

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Gunshot call production by the North Pacific right whale Eubalaena japonica in the southeastern Bering Sea

Crance¹,

Berchok²,

Keating³

2017

Endang. Species. Res.

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During dedicated surveys for the Critically Endangered eastern stock of North Pacific right whales Eubalaena japonica (NPRW) in the Bering Sea, focal follows (FFs) were combined with passive acoustic monitoring to correlate vocal activity with dive behavior. During FFs, impulsive gunshot calls (hereafter 'gunshots'), similar to those produced by other right whale populations, were localized to male and female NPRWs. The timing of gunshots correlated strongly with diving behavior observed during the FFs. Log survivorship analysis of inter-blow intervals showed a bout criterion interval of 40 s, separating the data into shorter surfacings and longer dives. For both, gunshots were skewed closer to the end of the sequence (modal gunshot to blow times: 5 s for dives, 7 s for surfacings) than the beginning (modal blow to gunshot times: 22 s for dives, 13 s for surfacings). Gunshots were more commonly produced during dives than surfacings. Mean gunshot calling rate during FFs was 133.0 calls h −1 (range: 38.9−425.0). Other NPRW calls, including upcalls, the predominant call used to identify right whales acoustically, were not detected during the FFs. To determine comparative call detection rates, an additional 180 h of non-FF recordings were analyzed. Gunshots were detected ~50 times more frequently than upcalls (mean: 228. . This is the first study to definitively attribute gunshots to NPRW, and demonstrates the importance of including gunshots in passive acoustic studies, which will greatly increase NPRW detectability while supporting more accurate determinations of their spatio-temporal distribution.

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Section: Comparison Of Gunshot Characteristics Among Right Whale Speciesmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Single males were also the most prolific gunshot producers for SRW (Clark 1983). Parks et al (2011) were able to obtain a gunshot calling rate (from acoustic tag recordings) of 24.5 calls h −1 . It should be noted that only one of their 46 tagged NARW (an adult male) produced gunshots.…”

Section: Calling Ratesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gunshot call production by the North Pacific right whale Eubalaena japonica in the southeastern Bering Sea

Crance¹,

Berchok²,

Keating³

2017

Endang. Species. Res.

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“…For these specific de ployments, the Autobuoys were designed to automatically detect right whale upcalls ( Fig. 2A) (Clark 1982 as they are the most commonly occurring call, are produced by all age and sex classes (Parks et al 2011), and are readily detected by automated detectors (Gillespie 2004). To extend deployment durations, Autobuoys save and transmit only a subset of the best upcall detections.…”

Section: Instrumentation and Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To extend deployment durations, Autobuoys save and transmit only a subset of the best upcall detections. In addition to upcalls, right whales also produce a variety of other call types (Fig 2B−E) including downcalls, screams (also described as high calls), moans, variable calls, and gunshots (Clark 1983, Matthews et al 2001, Parks & Clark 2007, Parks et al 2011) and the frequency of usage of these different call types on the calving grounds is unknown. The continuously recording MARUs are able to capture all call types as well as provide data on ambient noise conditions to evaluate the effectiveness of the Autobuoy for right whale ship-strike mitigation in this region.…”

Section: Instrumentation and Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By visually examining 30 min long LTSA segments, the start and end times of right whale calling bouts and other frequently occurring acoustic events were located and logged. Right whale calls typically occur in bouts (Parks et al 2011), making them easy to distinguish in the LTSA domain. Individual calls can be distinguished, particularly those with good signal to noise ratio (SNR), but occurrences of only a few, low SN R calls are likely to be Longer term hourly means and variances of ambient noise levels were calculated from the short-time (5 s) LTSAs for a large-scale view of ambient noise variability across deployments and sites.…”

Section: Acoustic Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

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Passive acoustic monitoring on the North Atlantic right whale calving grounds

Soldevilla¹,

Rice²,

Clark³

et al. 2014

Endang. Species. Res.

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North Atlantic right whales Eubalaena glacialis calve during winter off Florida and Georgia, USA, a region of high shipping traffic, and ship-strike risk is a concern. Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) of right whales on their foraging grounds increases detection opportunities to inform mariners of right whale presence and reduce the likelihood of ship strike. This study evaluates the effectiveness of PAM on right whale calving grounds by documenting the occurrence of right whale call detections on 2 types of acoustic instruments deployed off the coasts of Savannah, GA, and Jacksonville, FL, and comparing results with visual sightings and ambient noise conditions. Over 400 right whale calling events were detected on archival marine acoustic recording units (MARUs) at 2 sites across 2 seasons, and 92% of these calling events included right whale upcalls. Daily detections on archival MARUs and near-real time Autobuoys, which automatically detect upcalls, were significantly correlated and occurred on up to 25% of days off Savannah and 46% of days off Jacksonville. Visual aerial surveys detected right whales within 20 km of each acoustic site on a similar proportion of days with visual survey effort (15 to 33% off Savannah and 34 to 43% off Jacksonville). Acoustic methods enabled greater temporal effort, yielding a 2-to 10-fold increase in days with right whale detections over visual methods. Shipping noise and fish chorusing likely mask right whale call detections. However, considering the high number of right whale calling event detections by PAM during this study the results indicate that this is an effective method to augment detection of right whales in this environment, especially at night when they cannot be seen.

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Use of passive acoustic monitoring to document the distribution of the Indo‐Pacific finless porpoise in the south‐east region of Pearl River estuary, China: Implications for conservation and management

Fang

Wang

et al. 2022

Aquatic Conservation

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The Pearl River estuary in Guangdong is home to the Indo‐Pacific humpback dolphin (Sousa chinensis) and the Indo‐Pacific finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides). However, limited data are available for the latter species. Line‐transect passive acoustic monitoring surveys were conducted to investigate the distribution of the Indo‐Pacific finless porpoise in the Pearl River estuary in the period July to November 2019. The south‐east region of the Pearl River estuary is an important habitat for the Indo‐Pacific finless porpoise, and more than half of the acoustic detections were within 2 km of islands, concentrated around the uninhabited islands of Soko, Sanmen and Aizhou. The habitat extents of Indo‐Pacific finless porpoises in the survey areas were estimated as 209.04, 761.81 and 976.41 km2 using 50, 90 and 95% kernel densities, respectively. The 50% kernel density area was mainly around the aforementioned islands and is a priority candidate for protected area status. This is the first report of the distribution and critical habitat of the finless porpoise in the study area. Given the increasing human development in the Pearl River estuary, the results provide important data to help inform the protection of the habitat of finless porpoise in the context of marine planning and development, and promote the establishment of marine protected areas and stronger fisheries management measures.

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Sound production behavior of individual North Atlantic right whales: implications for passive acoustic monitoring

Cited by 107 publications

References 38 publications

Gunshot call production by the North Pacific right whale Eubalaena japonica in the southeastern Bering Sea

Gunshot call production by the North Pacific right whale Eubalaena japonica in the southeastern Bering Sea

Passive acoustic monitoring on the North Atlantic right whale calving grounds

Use of passive acoustic monitoring to document the distribution of the Indo‐Pacific finless porpoise in the south‐east region of Pearl River estuary, China: Implications for conservation and management

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