Background & Objectives

• Main Author: Weddell Sea Antarctica
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Weddell; Weddell Sea; Weddell Seal; Weddell Seals
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.66.6268; http://www.awi.de/acoustics/Publications/pubs/Mir2004a.pdf

Weddell seals, like other marine mammals have evolved to use sound and hearing as their primary means of communication and sensing their surroundings. Similarly, oceanographers, geophysicists, biologists and navigators rely on sound to measure ocean currents and bottom topography, to locate schools of fish by acoustic fish finders, and to navigate vessels. For tackling research on possible effects of man-made sound on marine mammals, the AWI recently established the project group “Ocean Acoustics”. The interdisciplinary projects involve: (1) identifying marine mammal vocalizations in long term acoustic recordings of high resolution, (2) developing techniques to minimize impacts of sound emissions on the marine environment, (3) constructing computer algorithms for automated call detection and classification, and (4) using the detected calls to understand the seasonal presence and behaviour of the animals. Here we summarize our initial analyses of acoustic recordings collected during a recent field campaign at the eastern Weddell Sea coast. The study aimed at examining the characteristics of Weddell seal calls and at identifying ambient sounds to find out how quiet or noisy the underwater habitat of Weddell seals actually is.