Unmanned Aerial Systems for Integrated Beaked Whale Demographic and Foraging Ecology Studies
Abstract
Endangered baleen whales and deep-diving beaked whales are of concern for the US Navy in relation to use of Mid-Frequency Active Sonar (MFAS) during training and testing. Impact from this source can range from behavioral and physiological response to lethal strandings and potentially result in population level consequences of disturbance. Comprehensive US Navy funded studies are underway in multiple ocean regions, to better understand the short and long-term impacts of this anthropogenic disturbance on these species, witha particular focus on Cuvier#s beaked whale population trends. Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), equipped with high resolution cameras and precision altitude measurement devices, are a relatively inexpensive, yet highly capable platform for collecting critical data from marine mammals. During at-sea surveys, portable scientific echosounders provide insights into available prey fields and henceunderlying ecological conditions for the observed marine mammals. With the use of UAS, we have been successful in collecting photo identification and behavioral data as well as precise body measurements (morphometrics), which can provide insights into age and sexclassification, individual health, growth rates, and pregnancy status. Recent changes in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Section 848, requires UAS systems manufactured in China to be replaced with US built systems which we propose here. Additionally, UAS systems are frequently used in conjunction with other sampling methodologies, such as on-animal tags, to record whale diving and foraging behavior, or scientific echosounders, to record prey fields. We propose to procure a portable scientific echosounder system available to our team for field efforts, enabling us to match surface to midwater prey fields, to those recorded in deep water by existing moored systems. As an immediate use case, this will allow for direct comparisons between a Cuvier#s beaked whale population inhabiting the US Navy sonar training range off Southern California, with populations in two MFAS undisturbed areas, off the coast of Guadalupe Island, Mexico and Terceira Island, Azores, Portugal.This abstract is publicly releasable.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jun 29, 2023
- Source ID
- N000142312508
Entities
People
- Simone Baumann-Pickering
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of California, San Diego