Abstract
Fishing boats produce acoustic cues while hauling longlines. These acoustic signals are known to be used by odontocetes to detect the fishing activity and to depredate. However, very little is known about potential interactions before hauling. This article describes the acoustic signature of the setting activity. Using passive acoustic recorders attached to the buoys of longlines, this work demonstrates an increase in the ambient sound of ∼6 dB re 1 μPa2 Hz-1 within 2-7 kHz during the setting activity. This could also be used as an acoustic cue by depredating species, suggesting that predators can detect longlines as soon as they are set.
Highlights
Anthropogenic underwater noise results from increasing human activities, such as resource exploration and exploitation, military activity, pile driving for construction, and marine traffic (Williams et al, 2015)
Spectrograms and averaged PSD (APSD) revealed a clear shift in ambient sound during the setting phases
Our results show that the setting phase produces a specific acoustic signature: a broadband noise significant enough to impact the ambient sound
Summary
Anthropogenic underwater noise results from increasing human activities, such as resource exploration and exploitation, military activity, pile driving for construction, and marine traffic (Williams et al, 2015). Specific anthropogenic sounds may attract marine mammals This is the case for some fishing activities which produce acoustic cues that inform marine mammals about the ongoing fishing activity, and the available fish resource (Carretta and Barlow, 2011; Mul et al, 2020; Thode et al, 2015). Appropriate countermeasures are difficult to obtain since depredation behaviours are highly variable. They notably depends on the species involved and on the type of longlines that are used
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