Correlation between vocalizations and breaching in the Southern Resident Killer whales

• Main Author: Nicole Lee
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: San Juan; Killer Whale; Killer whale
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.573.74; http://www.beamreach.org/051/papers/nicole.pdf

One of the key questions humans would ask killer whales, if given the chance, would be “What are you trying to communicate to me? ” Throughout the years humans have been able to link vocalizations to behaviors in many different animal species. There have been a few successful attempts in Killer whales. For instance, echolocation, a series of high frequency clicks emitted by whales for calculating the distance to an object has been found to occur when Killer whales are foraging (Lennard et al,. 1996a.). My curiosities led me to wonder if there were other behaviors that could be linked to vocalizations. I chose breaching, one of the most mysterious behaviors they perform. Using a linear hydrophone array, an amplifier, a recording device, and software designed for analyzing sound, I recorded and analyzed the vocalizations that were made one minute before and after I observed a breach. I found the most frequent call made was S10. My observations were made over a five week sailing excursion (Sept. 26 – Oct. 28) along the west side of San Juan Island, Washington. My study focused on the Southern Resident Killer whale pods J, K and L.