Examples of killer whale (Orcinus orca) calls from passive acoustic monitoring in the Gulf of Alaska ...

• Main Authors: Rice, Ally, Myers, Hannah, Olsen, Daniel, Pilkington, James, Hildebrand, John, Baumann-Pickering, Simone
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2022
• Subjects: FOS Biological sciences; Killer whales; ecotype; passive acoustic monitoring; Gulf of Alaska; Pacific; Pratt; Killer Whale; Kodiak; Orca; Orcinus orca; Alaska; Killer whale
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.6076/d1vs3r; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.6076/D1VS3R

Three killer whale (Orcinus orca) ecotypes are found in the northeastern Pacific: residents, transients, and offshores. Each ecotype produces distinct, stereotypic pulsed calls that serve as acoustic indicators of presence. To investigate the spatial and temporal occurrence of each ecotype in the Gulf of Alaska, long-term acoustic recorders were intermittently deployed from 2011 to 2019 at seven sites along the continental shelf and slope, in an abyssal region, and near offshore seamounts. This dataset contains examples of killer whale calls from these recordings. The examples are grouped based on the results of ecotype discrimination using established catalogs of call repertoires for each ecotype. ... : Passive acoustic monitoring was conducted in the Navy’s Gulf of Alaska Temporary Maritime Activity Area (GATMAA) using High-frequency Acoustic Recording Packages (HARPs) from July 2011 to September 2019. HARPs were deployed in a seafloor mooring configuration with the hydrophones suspended at least 10 m above the seafloor, except for Abyssal where the seafloor was at 4,000 m and the hydrophone at 1,200 m. Each HARP hydrophone was calibrated in the laboratory to provide a quantitative analysis of the received sound field. Representative data loggers and hydrophones were also calibrated at the Navy’s Transducer Evaluation Center facility to verify the laboratory calibrations. The seven sites monitored spanned the continental shelf (sites Kenai Shelf and Kodiak Shelf), the continental slope (sites Kodiak Slope and Kenai Slope), deep, offshore water (site Abyssal), and offshore seamounts (sites Quinn and Pratt). Kenai Shelf was monitored intermittently from July 2011 to September 2014, Kodiak Shelf almost ...