Comparing methods suitable for monitoring marine mammals in low visibility conditions during seismic surveys

Funding: This work was supported by the Joint Industry Programme on E&P Sound and Marine Life - Phase III. TAM was partially supported by CEAUL (funded by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal, through the project UID/MAT/00006/2013). Loud sound emitted during offshore industria...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Marine Pollution Bulletin
Main Authors: Verfuss, Ursula K., Gillespie, Douglas, Gordon, Jonathan, Marques, Tiago A., Miller, Brianne, Plunkett, Rachael, Theriault, James A., Tollit, Dominic J., Zitterbart, Daniel P., Hubert, Philippe, Thomas, Len
Other Authors: University of St Andrews. School of Biology, University of St Andrews. Sea Mammal Research Unit, University of St Andrews. Marine Alliance for Science & Technology Scotland, University of St Andrews. Scottish Oceans Institute, University of St Andrews. Sound Tags Group, University of St Andrews. Bioacoustics group, University of St Andrews. School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews. Centre for Research into Ecological & Environmental Modelling
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2018
Subjects:
Marine mammals
Monitoring methods
Underwater noise
Seismic survey
Detection performance
Low visibility
QH301 Biology
SDG 14 - Life Below Water
QH301
Marine Mammal Monitoring
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10023/12898
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2017.10.034
Description
Summary:Funding: This work was supported by the Joint Industry Programme on E&P Sound and Marine Life - Phase III. TAM was partially supported by CEAUL (funded by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal, through the project UID/MAT/00006/2013). Loud sound emitted during offshore industrial activities can impact marine mammals. Regulations typically prescribe marine mammal monitoring before and/or during these activities to implement mitigation measures that minimise potential acoustic impacts. Using seismic surveys under low visibility conditions as a case study, we review which monitoring methods are suitable and compare their relative strengths and weaknesses. Passive acoustic monitoring has been implemented as either a complementary or alternative method to visual monitoring in low visibility conditions. Other methods such as RADAR, active sonar and thermal infrared have also been tested, but are rarely recommended by regulatory bodies. The efficiency of the monitoring method(s) will depend on the animal behaviour and environmental conditions, however, using a combination of complementary systems generally improves the overall detection performance. We recommend that the performance of monitoring systems, over a range of conditions, is explored in a modelling framework for a variety of species. Peer reviewed

Similar Items