The acoustic field of singing humpback whales in the vertical plane

Abstract

A vertical array of five hydrophones was used to measure the acoustic field of singing humpback whales. Once a singer was located, two swimmers with snorkel gear were deployed to determine the orientation of the whale and to position the boat so that the array could be deployed in front of the whale at a minimum standoff distance of 10 m. The spacing of the hydrophones was 7 m with the deepest hydrophone deployed at depth of 35 m. An 8-channel TASCAM recorder having a bandwidth of 24 kHz was used to record the hydrophone signals. The location of the singer was determined by computing the time of arrival differences between the hydrophone signals. The maximum source level varied between individual units in a song, with values between 180 and 190 dB. The acoustic field determined by considering the relative intensity of higher frequency harmonics in the signals indicate that the sounds are projected in the horizontal direction with the singer’s head canted downward 45 to 60°. High-frequency harmonics extended beyond 24 kHz, suggesting that humpback whales may have an upper frequency limit of hearing as high as 24 kHz.