North Atlantic right whale up-calls in Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary 2006-2007

Sofie Van Parijs, NOAA NEFSC

Genevieve Davis, NOAA NEFSC

Ship strikes are a major cause of anthropogenic mortality for the endangered North Atlantic right whale Eubalaena glacialis. Year-round data on animal presence are critical to managingship strike mortality. Marine autonomous recording units were deployed throughout the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary (SBNMS, Massachusetts Bay, USA) for 13 months from January 2006 to February 2007 and on Jeffreys Ledge (JL, Gulf of Maine, USA) for 7 months from November 2004 to May 2005 to determine whether passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) can improve information on right whale occurrence. Automated detection and manual review were used to determine presence and absence of right whale up-calls. In the SBNMS, up-calls were
detected year round, except during July and August, and calling rates were highest from January through May, peaking in April. In JL, up-calls occurred throughout all recording months, with the highest numbers from November through February. Up-calls were heard extensively in the wintertime throughout the SBNMS and JL, suggesting that these areas are important overwintering grounds for right whales. Additionally, up-calls showed a strong diel trend in both areas, with significantly more calls occurring during twilight than dark and light periods. These data indicate
that right whales are present more often and over longer time periods in the western Gulf of Maine than previously thought using conventional visual techniques. Finally, this study demonstrates the utility of PAM in providing a detailed and long-term picture of right whale presence in an area that poses a significant risk of anthropogenic mortality.

N/A

This dataset contains SBNMS data only.

Overview

This section explains attributes included in the original dataset. OBIS-SEAMAP restricts the attributes available to the public to date/time, lat/lon and species names/counts only. Should you need other attributes described here, you are encouraged to contact the data provider.

Attributes described below represent those in the original dataset provided by the provider.
All attributes are included in the downloadable file (CSV or ESRI File Geodatabase) for "Complete Set of Dataset".

Attributes in dataset

Attribute (table column)	Description
oid	Unique ID (created by OBIS-SEAMAP)
date_orig	Date in original format
obs_date	Date recorded
channel	Channel
program_ver	Program version
min_to_make_rf	Min to make RF
view_min	View Min
n_in_diplay	N in diplay
deployment	Deployment
aru	ARU
latitude	Latitude in decimal degrees
longitude	Longitude in decimal degrees
series	Identifier representing a unique monitoring location and time period assigned by OBIS-SEAMAP
num_upcalls	Total # Rwupcalls by day
sp_obs	Species name
sp_tsn	Taxonomic Serial Number added by OBIS-SEAMAP
obs_count	Total # Rwupcalls by day
presence	Presence / absence (1 if num_upcalls > 0; 0 if num_upcalls = 0)