Avoidance responses of minke whales to 1–4 kHz naval sonar

• Published in: Marine Pollution Bulletin
• Main Authors: Kvadsheim, Petter H., DeRuiter, Stacy, Sivle, Lise D., Goldbogen, Jeremy, Roland-Hansen, Rune, Miller, Patrick J. O., Lam, Frans-Peter A., Calambokidis, John, Friedlaender, Ari, Visser, Fleur, Tyack, Peter L., Kleivane, Lars, Southall, Brandon
• Other Authors: Office of Naval Research, 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. Institute of Behavioural and Neural Sciences, University of St Andrews. Centre for Social Learning & Cognitive Evolution, University of St Andrews. Bioacoustics group, University of St Andrews. Sound Tags Group
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: Behavioural response; Naval sonar; Minke whale; Balaenoptera acutorostrata; North Pacific; North Atlantic; GC Oceanography; QH301 Biology; NDAS; GC; QH301; Norway; Pacific; minke whale
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/13549; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2017.05.037

The SOCAL project was funded by the US Navy Chief of Naval Operations Environmental Readiness Division and US Office of Naval Research. The 3S project was funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Defence, the US Office of Naval Research, the Netherlands Ministry of Defence and DGA French Ministry of Defence. The MOCHA project was funded by the US Office of Naval Research. Tyack received funding from the MASTS pooling initiative (The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland) and their support is gratefully acknowledged. MASTS is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (grant reference HR09011) and contributing institutions. Minke whales are difficult to study and little information exists regarding their responses to anthropogenic sound. This study pools data from behavioural response studies off California and Norway. Data are derived from four tagged animals, of which one from each location was exposed to naval sonar signals. Statistical analyses were conducted using Mahalanobis distance to compare overall changes in parameters summarising dive behaviour, avoidance behaviour, and potential energetic costs of disturbance. Our quantitative analysis showed that both animals initiated avoidance behaviour, but responses were not associated with unusual dive behaviour. In one exposed animal the avoidance of the sonar source included a 5-fold increase in horizontal speed away from the source, implying a significant increase in metabolic rate. Despite the different environmental settings and exposure contexts, clear changes in behaviour were observed providing the first insights into the nature of responses to human noise for this wide-ranging species. Postprint Peer reviewed