Feb 11, 2015
Presenter:
Mark Baumgartner WHOI
Title:
Passive acoustic monitoring of
marine mammals from autonomous vehicles and moored platforms: development
and applications
Abstract:
The use of moored passive acoustic
recorders for monitoring marine mammals has increased dramatically over the
past two decades, providing new insights into their seasonal occurrence,
distribution, and ecology. Since these instruments are archival, the
audio is inaccessible until the recorder is recovered, making real-time
response to the presence of vocalizing animals impossible. New instrumentation
and methods have been developed at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to
detect, classify, and report in near real time the sounds of marine mammals
from both mobile autonomous vehicles and moored platforms. With the NOAA
Northeast Fisheries Science Center and other collaborators, these technologies
are being used to conduct surveys in difficult-to-access areas and seasons,
direct ship- and aircraft-based monitoring and research activities, mitigate
harmful interactions between human activities and whales, and to help enable
early response to mass stranding events. The development of this
technology and current and planned applications will be presented.