Georges Bank

Gulf of MaineSBNMS

Acoustic Research in the Stellwagen Bank NMS

D. Wiley & L. Hatch

Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary175 Edward Foster Rd., Scituate, MA

Three Integrated Projects

•Autonomous Recording Units (ARUs) to monitor sound Collaboration with Cornell Univ. (C. Clark), Marine Acoustics Inc. (B. Ellison) & NMFS (R. Merrick & S. Van Parijs)

•DTAG to track whale behavior underwaterCollaboration with WHOI (P. Tyack & M. Johnson), UNH (C. Ware), Duke U (A. Friedlaender) , UH (A. Stimpert) & WCNE (M. Weinrich)

•Automatic Ident. Sys. (AIS) to monitor and track shipsCollaboration with USCG-RD (D. Pietraszewski), NMFS (R. Merrick, D. Gouveia and G. Silber) & UNH (K. Schwehr)

perotsystems®

Noise MonitoringARU

Deployment Design1/2005 – 1/2006

85%Coverage

85%Coverage

•Continuous recording from 5 to 1000Hz

•Capable of receiving whale calls between 5 to 10nm from units

•Deployment duration of 3 months – (total 12 months)

•Acoustic release

RWSAS vs Acoustic Comparison: March, 2006

Mar 30, 2006

Mar 24, 2006Mar 2, 2006

116 total

127 total

1092 total

98 total

313 total

823 total

Figure credit: Dimitri Ponirakis, Bioacoustics Research Program, Cornell University

Right whale up-call

Monitoring Vessel Traffic

Acoustic footprints of a (a) general cargo ship (b) NOAA research vessel at their closest points of approach to a recording unit in the shipping lane departing Boston.

ShipAnalysis

Band (Hz)MAX SL(t)

(dB re: 1μPa)

SL_mid(dB re: 1μPa)

(RMS RL & interpolated

middle-range)

120 dB Range (m)MAX SL(t)

120 dB Range (m)

SL_mid

160 dB Range (m)MAX SL(t)

160 dB Range (m)

SL_mid

Berge-Everett 89.1 - 355 181.30 176.23 12213.98 5607.43 26.31 12.08

Berge-Everett 89.1 - 355 180.14 174.04 29558.71 7285.28    

Delaware2 89.1 - 355 172.14 161.50 2991.50 584.29 6.45 1.26

Delaware2 89.1 - 355 175.61 165.06 6665.25 637.36    

DTAG

Map Underwater Behavior of Whales

GeoZui4D: UNH, WHOI, Stellwagen Bank Sanctuary

Acoustic Integration Model: Marine Acoustics, Inc, CU, Stellwagen Sanctuary

120db 105,199 Baleen Whales

1,299 Right Whales

160db 145 Baleen Whales

2 Right Whales

120db 38,983 Baleen Whales

678 Right Whales

160db 145 Baleen Whales

1 Right Whales

Shipping Lane

Spatial Distribution of Shipping Traffic in the Stellwagen Bank NMS:

April/May 2006

Monitoring during LNG Port Operation:

1) Notifying LNG carriers of acoustically-detected whales to prevent ship strikes

Monitoring during LNG

Port Operation:

1) Monitoring the port’s acoustic footprint

2) Monitoring the distributions of vocally-active species

Collaborators

Duke University Marine Lab

Financial Support