Sep 11 2012
D-TAG study listens to what Puget Sound orcas hear
Bioacoustics, Effects of Noise on Wildlife, Science Add comments
Brad Hanson and colleagues at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center are currently conducting a second year of exciting new acoustics field research with the Southern Resident killer whales of Puget Sound. As they did last year, researchers are attaching suction-cup digital acoustic recording tags (DTAGs) to orcas; the tags remain attached for up to four hours, all the while collecting both dive profile data and recording the sound heard (and made) by the animal. Hanson says that “we’re interested in trying to figure out if the noise levels are interfering with the whale’s ability to communicate effectively during foraging and or actually interferes with their foraging.”