Responses of Pacific Herring, Clupea harengus pallasi, to Some Underwater Sounds

• Published in: Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
• Main Authors: Schwarz, Abby L., Greer, Galen L.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Canadian Science Publishing 1984
• Subjects: Pacific; Killer Whale; Orca; Orcinus orca; Killer whale
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/f84-140; http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/f84-140

We describe the behavioral responses of net-penned Pacific herring (Clupea harengus pallasi) to a variety of tape-recorded sounds. Sounds recorded in the field from a herring fishing fleet included moving and stationary (idling) vessels, sonar, echo sounder, and deck gear. Natural sounds included rain on the water surface, gull (Larus spp.) cries, killer whale (Orcinus orca) vocalizations, barks of Steller's sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus), and sounds made by herring themselves. Sounds of more uniform structure were created with an electronic synthesizer and played back to herring to determine the relative effectiveness of various combinations (triads) of amplitude and frequency (increasing, decreasing, constant) and temporal pattern (continuous, regularly, or irregularly pulsed tones). Herring did not respond visibly to any of the taped sounds of natural origin or to sonar or echo sounders. There were three categories of negative response given to other sounds. Avoidance responses were elicited by sounds of large vessels approaching at constant speed, by smaller vessels but only when on accelerated approach, and by 11 different triads of the electronically synthesized sounds. Alarm, and less frequently Startle, were both elicited by those electronic sounds with an essentially instantaneous rise time in amplitude. Herring produced Chirps and Whistles in addition to feeding and hydrodynamic noises. Chirps consisted of one or several bursts of pulses in the range 1800–3200 Hz and occurred in bouts. Whistles were narrow-band continuous (unpulsed) sounds of 1600–2000 Hz. Captive herring showed no response to playbacks of these sounds.