Risk to Endangered Right Whales Decreased With Modern Location Technique

• Main Author: Pascoe, Devin
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: ScholarlyCommons 2023
• Subjects: Environmental Sciences; Physical Sciences and Mathematics; North Atlantic; North Atlantic right whale
• Online Access: https://repository.upenn.edu/mes_capstones/104; https://repository.upenn.edu/context/mes_capstones/article/1105/viewcontent/Devin_Pascoe_Capstone.pdf; https://repository.upenn.edu/context/mes_capstones/article/1105/filename/0/type/additional/viewcontent/poster___final.pptx

Marine acoustic localization software is used for many purposes, including behavioral studies of marine mammals, and minimizing risk to marine mammals from anthropogenic activities. In this study, a modern marine acoustic localization method was compared to a conventional method to determine their accuracies. This was done by simulating audio receivers recording North Atlantic right whale calls, feeding this data into both programs, then comparing the output locations. The output of the modern method, Sequential Bound Estimation (SBE), yields a 100% confidence interval of location. The output of the conventional method, Ishmael 3.0, is a specific coordinate with unidentified accuracy. The study concluded that SBE did in fact contain the true location of the whale at the time of the call 100% of the time, while Ishmael never output the true location. Under ideal circumstances with practically no error, the conventional solution had errors exceeding 500 yards, the distance required between any vessel and North Atlantic right whale to avoid vessel strikes and whale injury or death. The error of the conventional solution exceeded 500 yards 34.5 % of the time with 3 receivers, 19.5% with 4 receivers, and 12.25% with 5 receivers. Under realistic circumstances with errors consistent with those found in the field, the error of the conventional solution exceeded 500 yards 99.75% of the time with 3 and 4 receivers, and 98.75% with 5 receivers.