Distribution of Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the Caribbean Determined by a Rapid Acoustic Method
- 1 August 1978
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Canadian Science Publishing in Journal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada
- Vol. 35 (8) , 1150-1152
- https://doi.org/10.1139/f78-180
Abstract
Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) distribution in the eastern Caribbean Sea was studied by means of solitary sonobuoys deployed from an oceanographic aircraft. Humpback whale sounds were detected on 33 of 82 sonobuoys deployed. It is estimated that 62 whales were detected in an area of 22 140 km2 by this method with whale density calculated at 2.8 × 10−3 whales/km2. For further experiments in selected areas we used a colinear array to obtain accurate counts of humpbacks. A total of 18 humpbacks were detected in this manner with a mean of 2.6 whales per array deployment. Combined acoustic and visual detections indicate a minimum of 119 humpbacks in the area surveyed. This rapid acoustic method could also be applied to detection of almost all odontocete cetaceans and to other marine mammals with distinctive vocal patterns. Key words: cetaceans, whales, acoustic detection, distribution, density, humpbacks, aircraft detectors, sonobuoysThis publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: