Abstract:

This dataset contains a subset of the Littoral Acoustic Demonstration Center (LADC) passive acoustic system buoys data which were collected from 2015-06-26 to 2015-10-25 and 2016-09-11 t0 2017-01-31 used to identify sperm whale in the Gulf of Mexico. The data were collected at three locations in the Gulf of Mexico in 2015: Northern site (28.629584N, 88.523804W), Southern site (28.40758N, 88.620502W), and Western site (28.391069N, 88.996274W), respectively. During 2016-2017, only the southern site was re-occupied (28.461833N, 88.605000W). The clicks of sperm whale were detected based on energy level by a combination of automated and manual processing. These data were used to estimate the density of sperm whales in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Suggested Citation:

Kun Li, Natalia Sidorovskaia. 2020. Sperm whale activity at four locations in the northern Gulf of Mexico 2015-06-26 to 2015-10-25 and 2016-09-11 to 2017-01-31. Distributed by: GRIIDC, Harte Research Institute, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi. doi:10.7266/N7TM78RW

Publications:

Li, K., Sidorovskaia, N. A., Guilment, T., Tang, T., & Tiemann, C. O. (2021). Decadal Assessment of Sperm Whale Site-Specific Abundance Trends in the Northern Gulf of Mexico Using Passive Acoustic Data. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, 9(5), 454. doi:10.3390/jmse9050454

Purpose:

Sperm whale echolocation activity was quantified at four locations in 2015 and 2016 to examine the potential for species-specific site distribution and annual changes in activity across the four locations.

Data Parameters and Units:

The number of sperm whale clicks detected per minute, Timestamp UTC (GMT). The format uses 12 digits, which represent year, month, day, hour and minute. Ex, 201506260030, digits: (1:4)2015--year, (5:6)06-month, (7:8)26—day, (9:10)00-hour, (11:12)30--minute.

Methods:

The sperm whale clicks were flagged by examining energy distribution in the frequency band of 3-20 kHz, with a 10-standard deviation as the detection threshold. The date were scanned by computer algorithm, with additional manual inspection of detections in 10-minute time intervals every two hours across the entire dataset for each buoy and each year as confirmation and to estimate the proportion of false-positive detections.

Individual Files: