The Relationship between Vessel Traffic and Noise Levels Received by Killer Whales (Orcinus orca)

Juliana Houghton; Marla M Holt; Deborah A Giles; M Bradley Hanson; Candice K Emmons; Jeffrey T Hogan; Trevor A Branch; Glenn R VanBlaricom

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0140119

The Relationship between Vessel Traffic and Noise Levels Received by Killer Whales (Orcinus orca)

PLoS One. 2015 Dec 2;10(12):e0140119. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0140119. eCollection 2015.

Authors

Juliana Houghton¹, Marla M Holt², Deborah A Giles³, M Bradley Hanson², Candice K Emmons², Jeffrey T Hogan⁴, Trevor A Branch¹, Glenn R VanBlaricom^{5

1}

Affiliations

¹ School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States of America.
² Conservation Biology Division, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, WA, United States of America.
³ Wildlife, Fish, & Conservation Biology, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, United States of America.
⁴ Cascadia Research Collective, Olympia, WA, United States of America.
⁵ U.S. Geological Survey, Washington Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Seattle, WA, United States of America.

Abstract

Whale watching has become increasingly popular as an ecotourism activity around the globe and is beneficial for environmental education and local economies. Southern Resident killer whales (Orcinus orca) comprise an endangered population that is frequently observed by a large whale watching fleet in the inland waters of Washington state and British Columbia. One of the factors identified as a risk to recovery for the population is the effect of vessels and associated noise. An examination of the effects of vessels and associated noise on whale behavior utilized novel equipment to address limitations of previous studies. Digital acoustic recording tags (DTAGs) measured the noise levels the tagged whales received while laser positioning systems allowed collection of geo-referenced data for tagged whales and all vessels within 1000 m of the tagged whale. The objective of the current study was to compare vessel data and DTAG recordings to relate vessel traffic to the ambient noise received by tagged whales. Two analyses were conducted, one including all recording intervals, and one that excluded intervals when only the research vessel was present. For all data, significant predictors of noise levels were length (inverse relationship), number of propellers, and vessel speed, but only 15% of the variation in noise was explained by this model. When research-vessel-only intervals were excluded, vessel speed was the only significant predictor of noise levels, and explained 42% of the variation. Simple linear regressions (ignoring covariates) found that average vessel speed and number of propellers were the only significant correlates with noise levels. We conclude that vessel speed is the most important predictor of noise levels received by whales in this study. Thus, measures that reduce vessel speed in the vicinity of killer whales would reduce noise exposure in this population.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Behavior, Animal*
Environment
Noise*
Ships*
Vocalization, Animal / physiology*
Whale, Killer

Grants and funding

This work has been funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Northwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries Ocean Acoustics Program, NOAA Northwest Regional Office through Cascadia Research Collective, the University of Washington (UW) School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, the UW College of the Environment, and the Motion Picture Exhibitors of WA, AK & OR Scholarship. MMH, MBH, and CKE are employees of Northwest Fisheries Science Center. The other funding agencies had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.