Factors which influence acoustic surveys of marine mammals

Abstract

Traditionally, many marine mammal populations have been estimated by visual surveys. These count the animals that are available—either seals hauled-out on the ice or whales at the water’s surface. Corrections are then made to include the animals that were not seen either because they were in (seals) or under (whales) the water. However when the majority of the animals in a population are not available to a visual survey this approach may be less effective. So we investigated whether acoustic surveys offered promise for estimating the distribution and abundance of Antarctic pack-ice seals. Four acoustic surveys were conducted (October 1996, 1997; December 1997, 1999) between longitudes 600E and 1500E. Surveys were bounded to the south by fast-ice, shelf-ice or the Antarctic continent and to the north by the edge of the pack-ice. No crabeater seals were heard. Leopard and Ross seals were highly vociferous in December coinciding with their breeding season. To predict the area surveyed we modeled transmission loss and measurements of received background levels. To identify the number of seals calling we modeled calling behavior. A preliminary estimate of 0.13 male leopard seals/km2 was calculated which is in the high-density range described from the literature.