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

Wittekind, D.; Tougaard, J.; Stilz, P.; Dähne, M.; Clark, C.; Lucke, Klaus; von Benda-Beckmann, S.; Ainslie, M.; Siebert, U.

doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-2981-8_156

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Authors

Wittekind, D.

Tougaard, J.

Stilz, P.

Dähne, M.

Clark, C.

Lucke, Klaus

von Benda-Beckmann, S.

Ainslie, M.

Siebert, U.

Date

2016

Type

Conference Paper

Metadata

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Citation

Wittekind, D. and Tougaard, J. and Stilz, P. and Dähne, M. and Clark, C. and Lucke, K. and von Benda-Beckmann, S. et al. 2016. Development of a model to assess masking potential for marine mammals by the use of air guns in Antarctic waters, pp. 1243-1249.

DOI

10.1007/978-1-4939-2981-8_156

ISSN

0065-2598

School

Centre for Marine Science and Technology

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/52322

Collection

Curtin Research Publications

Abstract

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016.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.