Ecology and Acoustic Behavior of Minke Whales in the Hawaiian and Pacific Islands: A Study to Assess the Distribution, Abundance, Acoustic Behaviors, and the Effects of Noise on a Visually Elusive, but Acoustically Active Species

摘要

The main objective of this joint project was to use vessel-based passive acoustic methods collecting data to estimate the density and abundance of minke whales at our study site. A second objective was to investigate minke whale acoustic behavior including an investigation of its sensitivity to noise. The third objective was to investigate the population structure of minke whales by measuring and comparing acoustic characteristics of boings recorded at our study area in Hawaii to other regions such as the Marianas Islands and Midway Island. In reviewing the initial localizations obtained in the field for minke whale calls, we were concerned about the quality of our data as there were processed in real-time with little operator supervision. This can result in many uncertainties and errors which cannot be easily assessed during field operations. Therefore the acoustic data are being re-analyzed and quality controlled to calculate more precise perpendicular distances to the track-line from localizations. To be able to achieve this, a new software tool named BOINGER was developed at the University of St Andrews in Janik's research group.