Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
Passive acoustic methods for fine-scale tracking of harbour porpoises in tidal rapids. / MacAulay, Jamie Donald John; Gordon, Jonathan Charles David; Gillespie, Douglas Michael; Malinka, Chloe Elizabeth; Northridge, Simon Patrick.
In: Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 141, No. 2, 02.2017, p. 1120-1132.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Passive acoustic methods for fine-scale tracking of harbour porpoises in tidal rapids
AU - MacAulay, Jamie Donald John
AU - Gordon, Jonathan Charles David
AU - Gillespie, Douglas Michael
AU - Malinka, Chloe Elizabeth
AU - Northridge, Simon Patrick
PY - 2017/2
Y1 - 2017/2
N2 - The growing interest in generating electrical power from tidal currents using tidal turbine generators raises a number of environmental concerns, including the risk that marine mammals might be injured or killed through collision with rotating turbine blades. To understand this risk, information on how marine mammals use tidal rapid habitats and in particular, their underwater movements and dive behaviour is required. Porpoises, which are the most abundant small cetacean at most European tidal sites, are difficult animals to tag, and the limited size of tidal habitats means that any telemetered animal would be likely to spend only a small proportion of time within them. Here, an alternative approach is explored, whereby passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) is used to obtain fine scale geo-referenced tracks of harbour porpoises in tidal rapid areas. Large aperture hydrophone arrays are required to obtain accurate locations of animals from PAM data and automated algorithms are necessary to process the large quantities of acoustic data collected on such systems during a typical survey. Methods to automate localisation, including a method to match porpoise detections on different hydrophones and separate different vocalising animals, and an assessment of the localisation accuracy of the large aperture hydrophone array are presented.
AB - The growing interest in generating electrical power from tidal currents using tidal turbine generators raises a number of environmental concerns, including the risk that marine mammals might be injured or killed through collision with rotating turbine blades. To understand this risk, information on how marine mammals use tidal rapid habitats and in particular, their underwater movements and dive behaviour is required. Porpoises, which are the most abundant small cetacean at most European tidal sites, are difficult animals to tag, and the limited size of tidal habitats means that any telemetered animal would be likely to spend only a small proportion of time within them. Here, an alternative approach is explored, whereby passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) is used to obtain fine scale geo-referenced tracks of harbour porpoises in tidal rapid areas. Large aperture hydrophone arrays are required to obtain accurate locations of animals from PAM data and automated algorithms are necessary to process the large quantities of acoustic data collected on such systems during a typical survey. Methods to automate localisation, including a method to match porpoise detections on different hydrophones and separate different vocalising animals, and an assessment of the localisation accuracy of the large aperture hydrophone array are presented.
U2 - 10.1121/1.4976077
DO - 10.1121/1.4976077
M3 - Article
VL - 141
SP - 1120
EP - 1132
JO - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
JF - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
SN - 0001-4966
IS - 2
ER -
Research output: Book/Report › Commissioned report
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
ID: 244842084