SEA Blog

Scientific American article on human noise and "acoustic habitat"

A recent Scientific American article online highlights some recent work by Chris Clark, John Hildebrand, Sofie Van Parijs, Leila Hatch and others in measuring and monitoring underwater sound.  Passive listening systems are being used to better understand natural systems and variability, human contributions to underwater noise, and potential/demonstrated impacts on marine life.  

I would also note a previous SEA blog post on an article by Drs. Clark, Van Parijs, Hatch, myself and others on calculating areas of noise interference for large whales in a special issue of Marine Ecology Progress Series <see Clark et al. paper at: http://sea.typepad.com/sea-blog/2009/12/meps-theme-section-on-acoustics-in-marine-ecology-published.html#tp>

The link for the recent Scientific American article is given below, as well as the first few paragraphs. 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=noise-reduces-ocean-habitat-for-whales

Noise Reduces Ocean Habitat for Whales

By visualizing the acoustic habitat, scientists are discovering that the ocean is becoming a noisier place

By Elizabeth Grossman   |October 22, 2010  

The oceans were once a relatively quiet place. Yet in recent decades, anthropogenic ocean noise levels have risen markedly—doubling every decade for the past 50 years, according to research by scientists at Scripps Whale Acoustic Lab. Today, due to the volume of shipping as well as offshore oil and gas drilling and exploration, the din underwater—where sounds can travel long distances—is constant. In fact, some scientists say virtually no marine environment is now without noise pollution. This finding is startling to scientists who study cetaceans and other marine life, as it is becoming clearer that whales rely heavily on the integrity of their acoustic habitat. If ocean noise continues to increase as a result of human activities, whales may soon have nowhere to go.

Of greatest concern are low-frequency sounds that travel long distances in the ocean. Ship propellers and motors, for instance, produce sound at low frequencies, as does seismic activity. These profound, loud noises reverberate in the deep ocean and can effectively mask or block vital whale communication. In Cape Cod Bay, man-made noise has reduced right whales' acoustic habitat by as much as 80 percent, says Chris Clark, director of Cornell University's Bioacoustics Research Program.

To better understand these underwater acoustics, Clark and his colleagues have developed graphic animations that show the acoustic habitat as experienced by whales. Using data collected by seafloor sound monitors, the scientists can map the locations of whales and measure their sounds, along with anthropogenic sounds. The resulting animations vividly depict how the noise from human activities physically obstructs and reduces whales' habitat, interfering with what Clark calls the animals' "communication space."

 

Researchers investigate marine mammal behavior and responses to sound

UCSC issued a variation of the Scripps press release for the SOCAL-10 BRS study.  The first few paragraphs are given below and it is available at:

http://news.ucsc.edu/2010/10/marine-mammals.html

Researchers investigate marine mammal behavior and responses to sound

Tagging and monitoring project off Southern California leads to increased understanding of whales and dolphins, including reactions to sound

October 21, 2010

By Mario Aguilera, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

A team of researchers recently completed an intensive and extremely productive two-month research project off the Southern California coast, part of a collaboration to study marine mammal behavior and measure how animals on the U.S. West Coast respond to sounds in the ocean.

Brandon Southall, the overall project lead, is a research associate with the Institute of Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz and founder of an environmental consulting company, Southall Environmental Associates (SEA) of Santa Cruz.

Major Development in Offshore Wind Energy Infrastructure

For those of you following developments in offshore alternative energy and specifically offshore wind, note this recent article in the NY Times.  This deal represents a major development in building the infrastructure for offshore energy, which has been a perpetually limiting factor for many forms of alternative energy.  It also represents an interesting and important kind of partnership, which was praised by numerous government officials and environmental organizations.  I have included the link below and also the first few paragraphs below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/science/earth/12wind.html?_r=2&hp

Offshore Wind Power Line Wins Backing

By MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON — Google and a New York financial firm have each agreed to invest heavily in a proposed $5 billion transmission backbone for future offshore wind farms along the Atlantic Seaboard that could ultimately transform the region’s electrical map.

The 350-mile underwater spine, which could remove some critical obstacles to wind power development, has stirred excitement among investors, government officials and environmentalists who have been briefed on it.

Google and Good Energies, an investment firm specializing in renewable energy, have each agreed to take 37.5 percent of the equity portion of the project. They are likely to bring in additional investors, which would reduce their stakes.

SOCAL-10 Press Release Issued

Please note that a press release for the SOCAL-10 Behavioral Response Study was released today by Scripps Institution of Oceanography.  The link for the release is:

http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/Releases/?releaseID=1118

and I have pasted the text of it here as well.  Please note the sites for additional information (and see posts in reverse chronological order below here from the recent fieldwork) and the contact information (including mine) for researchers involved in the project.  Please forward this to anyone you think would be interested and let us know if there are questions, comments, or if you would like additional information.  Thanks, Brandon

 

October 18, 2010

Researchers Collaborate to Study Marine Mammal Behavior

Tagging and monitoring project off Southern California leads to increased understanding of whales and dolphins, including reactions to sound

Scripps Institution of Oceanography/University of California, San Diego

A team of researchers recently completed an intensive and extremely productive two- month research project off the Southern California coast, part of a collaboration to study marine mammal behavior and measure how animals on the U.S. West Coast respond to sounds in the ocean.

The interdisciplinary collaboration of biologists and acousticians specializing in marine mammal biology, ecology and behavior—called SOCAL-10 (Southern California 2010)—is extending ongoing studies of basic biology, feeding behavior and responses to human activity in a number of marine mammal species, including large whales and several smaller cetacean species. The project is part of a five-year study funded by the U.S. Navy and coordinated with NOAA, but primarily being conducted by independent academic and research groups.

“The overall objective is to provide a direct scientific basis for estimating risk and minimizing the impact of human sound, and particularly those from military sonars, for navies and regulators,” said Brandon Southall of Southall Environmental Associates (SEA), Inc. and the University of California, Santa Cruz.

SOCAL-10 included tagging, tracking and acoustic experiments on nine different marine mammal species, designed to study basic behavioral patterns and how these animals may change their behavior when they hear different sounds, including Navy sonar.

A scouting trip and extremely productive first experimental phase of the project focused primarily inshore and on behavior and responses of blue, fin and sperm whales.

Favorable weather conditions and an unusual abundance of large whales off Southern California led to a tremendous amount of data being collected during these phases in August and early September. More than 50 acoustic, dive and location-orienting sensors were attached to individuals of seven different marine mammal species (blue, sei, fin, sperm, killer and Baird’s beaked whales, in addition to bottlenose dolphin), resulting in a large set of basic biological and behavioral data. The deployments of tags on sei and Baird’s beaked whales were the first of their kind on the U.S. West Coast and will provide critical data about the movement and behavior of these little known species.

The second experimental phase commenced Sept. 21 from the Scripps research vessel Sproul in collaboration with John Hildebrand, a Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego professor of oceanography, and focused on offshore species including beaked whales, sperm whales and Risso’s dolphins. Researchers tagged and conducted the first-ever controlled sound exposure experiment with a Cuvier’s beaked whale, which is the species most commonly present in sonar-associated marine mammal strandings. Additionally, the first-ever successful acoustic tag and exposure study on a Risso’s dolphin was conducted.

“By working with the Navy in the instrumented Southern California Offshore Range, we were able to readily locate Cuvier’s beaked whales, elusive animals, that are primarily found in deepwater offshore areas,” said Hildebrand.

“The researchers involved in SOCAL-10 hope the project contributes to a greater understanding of biologically important areas, how marine mammals dive and communicate and to understand how Navy activities impact them,” said John Calambokidis of Cascadia Research Collective (CRC). 

 Preliminary results based primarily on observed behavior were variable, suggesting overt responses in some conditions and indicated variation by species, behavioral state and type of sound. However, researchers will take months to analyze and interpret the nearly 400 hours of tag data from the project, as well as thousands of marine mammal observations and photographs. The data from the tags will provide a more clear and objective way to assess reactions, pending additional analysis.

Most importantly this provides the first data on the reaction of some of these species to specific types of sound and fills a critical gap in knowledge. SOCAL-10 is the first project to rigorously measure marine mammal response to the types of military sonar sounds that have been associated with previous marine mammal stranding events in specific circumstances.

Overall, SOCAL-10 had 62 successful tag attachments (using six kinds of tags) on 44 individual animals representing nine marine mammal species. Scientists also conducted 28 controlled sound exposure experiments. In these experiments, animals were monitored with suction cup acoustic sensors, remote listening devices and specialized observers with high-powered binoculars. Sounds were played to the animals under specific protocols and protective measures to ensure the animals were not harmed and any changes in behavior were measured.

The project was lead by Southall and Calambokidis, and included scientists from CRC, SEA, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, NOAA, Duke University, Naval Undersea Warfare Center and SPAWAR Systems Pacific.

 

For additional information on this project see the:

SOCAL-10 website <http://www.sea-inc.net/SOCAL10/>;

SOCAL-10 blog <http://sea.typepad.com/sea-blog/>; and

SOCAL-10 Facebook page: <http://www.facebook.com/pages/Behavioral-Response-Studies-of-Marine-Mammals/153316228012219>  

SOCAL-10 Project contacts:

Brandon Southall, SEA and UC Santa Cruz, overall project lead Brandon.Southall@sea-inc.net, 831-332-8744

John Calambokidis, Cascadia Research, leader of scouting mission and coordinator of tagging and observation efforts Calambokidis@cascadiaresearch.org; 360-280-8349

John Hildebrand, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Chief Scientist of R/V Sproul jhildebrand@ucsd.edu, 858 534-4069

 

END SOCAL-10

We have come to the end of the second leg and field season for our SOCAL-10 project.  In a word it was amazing.  We attached 62 tags of six different types to 44 individuals of 9 marine mammal species.  We also conducted 28 complete sound exposure experiments with individuals of 4 species, including two (Risso's dolphin and Cuvier's beaked whale) that had never been previously tested.  We had a number of other firsts in this project as well, and demonstrated that our somewhat lighter mode of operation than previous related studies can be effective, at least in the areas where we were operating and for the species we were testing.  Clearly we were very fortunate in the weather and number of animals present during this study.  What we were doing is quite difficult and many things have to go right for it to be successful.  We had the right tools and some outstanding people, but we did have fortune on our side most of the time as well.  Future studies may not necesssarily experience the same rates of tagging or species diversity. 

Over the next few months we will be pulling all of the results together into a project report that should be available late in the year or early in 2010.  There will be postings on this blog and also the SOCAL-10 website www.sea-inc.net/SOCAL10.  Additional information will also be made available there and announced here intermittently and project team members will be speaking in various venues about the project in the coming months.  The SEA blog will begin to include some postings on other subjects in the interim; comments, questions, and suggestions are always welcome, including queries about how things are coming with the SOCAL-10 data analysis and SOCAL-11 planning.

There is no way to sufficiently thank or acknowledge all those responsibel for the accomplishments we managed in the project.  Suffice it to say we had an incredible team of devoted, talented, and fun people who came together to be a part of something very special.  Thank you everyone - you know who you are.

 
              Photo credit: B. Southall

Last bit of luck...

We had to search for it a while and sweat it a little bit, but we did manage to get our tag back that had been riding around on the Cuvier's beaked whale we tagged and played sounds back to yesterday.  With fog limiting our visibility, the clock ticking for our last full day on the water (with us 60 miles offshore), and the small boats being limited in fuel, we stayed on it.  Just before noon it came off the whale on a deep dive, floated to the surface, and began phoning home so we could go get it.  When we scooped it out of the sea and found it full of data there was much rejoicing

                                     

Later in the day we tried to find some other species that we could do a final bit of work with.  While we  didn't find the other beaked whales or Risso's dolphins we were looking for, we did find a great mixed feeding aggregation of Pacific white-sided dolphins and California sea lions just thrashing and jumping through large bait balls at the surface. 

                                            Photos courtesy: B. Southall, A. Friedlaender