Development of a model to assess masking potential for marine mammals by the use of air guns in Antarctic waters

• Main Authors: Wittekind, Dietrich, Tougaard, Jakob, Stilz, Peter, Dähne, Michael, Clark, Christopher W., Lucke, Klaus, von Benda-Beckmann, Sander, Ainslie, Michael A., Siebert, Ursula
• Other Authors: Popper, Arthur N., Hawkins, Anthony
• Format: Other Non-Article Part of Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Springer 2016
• Subjects: Mysticetes; Pinnipeds; Propagation modeling; Seismic; Antarctic Regions; Models; Theoretical; Water; Fin Whale/physiology; Perceptual Masking/physiology; Aquatic Organisms/physiology; Mammals/physiology; Animals; Sound Spectrography; Signal Processing; Computer-Assisted; Antarctic; Southern Ocean; Antarc*; Fin whale
• Online Access: https://pure.au.dk/portal/da/publications/development-of-a-model-to-assess-masking-potential-for-marine-mammals-by-the-use-of-air-guns-in-antarctic-waters(18b432e0-4bd8-461d-930a-ef9494a378ac).html; https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2981-8_156; http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84948844602&partnerID=8YFLogxK

We estimated the long-range effects of air gun array noise on marine mammal communication ranges in the Southern Ocean. Air gun impulses are subject to significant distortion during propagation, potentially resulting in a quasi- continuous sound. Propagation modeling to estimate the received waveform was conducted. A leaky integrator was used as a hearing model to assess communication masking in three species due to intermittent/continuous air gun sounds. Air gun noise is most probably changing from impulse to continuous noise between 1,000 and 2,000 km from the source, leading to a reduced communication range for, e.g., blue and fin whales up to 2,000 km from the source.