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Article Dans Une Revue Marine Ecology Progress Series Année : 2016

Naval sonar disrupts foraging in humpback whales

Résumé

Modern long-range naval sonars are a potential disturbance for marine mammalsand can cause disruption of feeding in cetaceans. We examined the lunge-feeding behaviour ofhumpback whales Megaptera novaeangliaebefore, during and after controlled exposure experi-ments with naval sonar by use of acoustic and motion sensor archival tags attached to each animal.Lunge-feeding by humpback whales entails a strong acceleration to increase speed before engulf-ing a large volume of prey-laden water, which can be identified by an acoustic signature charac-terized by a few seconds of high-level flow-noise followed by a rapid reduction, coinciding with apeak in animal acceleration. Over 2 successive seasons, 13 humpback whales were tagged. Allwere subject to a no-sonar control exposure, and 12 whales were exposed to 2 consecutive sonarexposure sessions, with 1 h between sessions. The first sonar session resulted in an average 68%reduction in lunge rate during exposure compared to pre-exposure, and this reduction was signif-icantly greater than any changes observed during the no-sonar control. During the second sonarsession, reduction in lunge rate was 66% during sonar exposure compared to the pre-exposurelevel, but was not significant compared to the no-sonar control, likely due to a larger inter-individ-ual variability because some individuals appeared to have habituated whereas others had not.Our results indicate that naval sonars operating near humpback whale feeding grounds may leadto reduced foraging and negative impacts on energy balance

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Dates et versions

hal-02915542 , version 1 (14-08-2020)

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Citer

Lise Doksæter Silve, Paul Jacobus Wensveen, Petter Helgevold Kvadsheim, Frans-Peter Alexander Lam, Fleur Visser, et al.. Naval sonar disrupts foraging in humpback whales. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 2016, 562, pp.211--220. ⟨10.3354/meps11969⟩. ⟨hal-02915542⟩

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