New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research abstracts

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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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