Abstract:

A real-time buoy was deployed to test the development of Environmental Acoustic Recording System (EARS) buoy satellite-transmitted data packages. Acoustic detections of cetacean (beaked whales, sperm whales, and dolphins) phonations were classified using Matlab. Detection events were reported by site, with associated filename, duration, number of clicks in each event, and timestamp for the beginning of the detection event.

Suggested Citation:

Sidorovskaia, Natalia and Kun Li. 2021. Acoustic detections of cetaceans from real-time Environmental Acoustic Recording System (EARS) buoy in the northern Gulf of Mexico 2016-09-10 to 2017-01-31. Distributed by: GRIIDC, Harte Research Institute, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi. doi:10.7266/n7-hs5d-ef17

Purpose:

Acoustic detections were determined from passive acoustic data to determine post-Deepwater Horizon distributions and potential differences from pre-Deepwater Horizon distributions of species of beaked whales in the Gulf of Mexico.

Data Parameters and Units:

location_B11.txt: latitude (degrees, decimal minutes), longitude (degrees, decimal minutes), depth (meters); daily_activity_B11.csv: serial number (index), clicks per minute, time stamp (recording timelines with UTC (GMT) at three different locations - format uses 12 digits, which represent year, month, day, hour and minute. ex, 201609100000, Digits: (1:4)2016---year, (5:6)09---month, (7:8)10--day, (9:10)00---hour, (11:12)00---minute); classifications_B11.csv: raw file names, emerging time bins for each detected species of beaked whale

Methods:

Species of beaked whale (Cuvier’s beaked whale, Gervais’s beaked whale and an unidentified species that we call it as ‘BWG which is Beaked whale Gulf’) were detected by using a three-stage detection algorithm. The first stage detector is based on multi-band energy comparison with baseline threshold. The second-stage detector performs a multi-attribute analysis on the first stage detection events to classify potential detections as clicks from beaked whale family and separate them from other signals. The third stage detector separates identified beaked whales into different species using clustering analysis algorithm. These data were used to estimate and analyze densities of beaked whales in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Instruments:

Matlab

Individual Files: