New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research abstracts
An acoustic survey of baleen whales off Great Barrier Island, New Zealand
M. A. Mcdonald
WhaleAcoustics
11430 Rist Canyon Road
Bellvue, CO 80512
United States
email: mark@whaleacoustics.com
Abstract Acoustic recordings of baleen
whale calls were analysed for the calendar year 1997 from a pair of fixed hydrophones
located 5 km east of Great Barrier Island, New Zealand. The primary goal of
the study was to examine blue whale seasonality and song type as part of a
larger worldwide study. Calls were recorded from blue whales of two song types,
fin whales, humpback whales, Bryde’s whales, and of two unknown call types,
each probably produced by Bryde’s whales. The peak of calling density was
May through September for the blue, fin, and humpback whales. The known Bryde’s
whale calls occurred year-round and the probable Bryde’s whale calls occurred
from May through December. Blue whale songs of a type so far known only from
New Zealand waters were detected within 2 km of shore and occurred four times
from June to December, whereas the Southern Ocean blue whale songs were detected
only further offshore in mid-winter. Bryde’s whale calls were the most
abundant type and often occurred near the hydrophones. These data provide a baseline
from which future recordings from the same hydrophones could be compared.
Keywords whale; Balaenoptera;
cetacean; whale calls; song; New Zealand; hydrophone
New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 2006, Vol. 40:
519–529
0028–8330/06/4004–0519 © The Royal Society
of New Zealand 2006
M06010; Online publication date 28 September 2006. Received 24 February
2006; accepted 29 July 2006
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