Acoustic Behavior of North Atlantic Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis) Mother-Calf Pairs

Abstract

The long-term goal of this project is to quantify the behavior of mother-calf pairs from the North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) to determine (a) why mothers and calves are more susceptible to collisions with vessels and, (b) determine the vocal behavior of this critical life stage to assess the effectiveness of passive acoustic monitoring to detect mother-calf pairs in important habitat areas. The primary objectives of this project are to: (1) determine the visual detectability of right whale mother-calf pairs from surface observations, (2) determine the acoustic detectability of right whale mother-calf pairs, (3) determine the acoustic detection ranges of mother-calf calls through propagation modeling, (4) assess the ontogeny or changes in behavior with calf development, and (5) assess the individual distinctiveness of right whale vocalizations.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 30, 2010
Accession Number
ADA541426

Entities

People

  • Sofie Van Parijs
  • Susan E. Parks

Organizations

  • National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Ground and Sea Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Acoustic Detection
  • Collisions
  • Data Analysis
  • Detection
  • Identification
  • Information Operations
  • Massachusetts
  • Monitoring
  • New England
  • Observation
  • Ontogeny
  • Pennsylvania
  • United States
  • Universities
  • Vocalization

Readers

  • Marine Mammal Biology