DolphinWatch: Dolphins in the Chesapeake Bay. Amber Fandel Faculty Research Assistant

Transcription

1 DolphinWatch: Dolphins in the Chesapeake Bay Amber Fandel Faculty Research Assistant 1

2 Lots of dolphins! Philip Yunger Kevin McDonald Carolyn Wilson Chris Moe Chris Bache Dennis DePriest Tania Richardson Remaly Chris Moe 2

3 Bottlenose dolphins Tania Richardson Remaly 3

4 Dolphin Sightings 4

5 Offshore Wind Energy Areas 5

6 Potential ecological impacts Little risk of catastrophic impact compared to other forms of energy extraction, e.g. oil. Possible injury or disturbance caused by: Construction noise, particularly pile-driving Increased vessel traffic Collisions with turbine blades Changes in prey From Slabberkoorn et al

7 Assessing Environmental Impacts For stressors such as sound, the area of potential effect may extend far beyond the immediate vicinity of the proposed development. Sound 500m from pile-driving Sound 30km from pile-driving Bailey et al Mar. Poll. Bulletin Bailey et al Aquatic Biosystems 7

8 Project Goals Collect baseline data to: characterize patterns of occurrence of vocalizing marine mammal species characterize existing ambient noise levels 8

9 Passive acoustic monitoring Excellent for detecting vocally active species at high temporal resolution in all weather conditions Provides pervasive record Ability to detect other environmental and anthropogenic sounds Non-invasive 9

10 paulearlephotography.com/blog/seaeaglesdolphins 10

11 Marine Mammals North Atlantic Right Whale Recorded by A. Rice and his team in the MD WEA. Fin Whale Sound sped up 5x Fin whale sound and spectrogram courtesy of NOAA NEFSC. 11

12 Marine Mammals Bottlenose Dolphin Recorded by H. Bailey and J. Wingfield in the MD WEA. Harbor Porpoise Sound 1/20 normal speed Porpoise sound and spectrograms courtesy of NOAA NEFSC. 12

13 Data Collection Two types of devices: 1) The Marine Autonomous Recording Unit (MARU) designed by Cornell University collects a continuous archival record of the sound environment (sampling at 2kHz). Calibrated to measure absolute ambient noise levels Detects calls by large whales 13

14 Data collection 2) The C-POD is a tonal click detector that continuously monitors the kHz frequency range. Detects echolocation clicks by small cetaceans (dolphins and porpoises). 14

15 Acoustic Array 15

16 Preliminary Results: Whales Fin whales Right whales Monthly percent presence in the wind energy area (Hodge and Rice, Bioacoustics Research Program Cornell University) 16

17 Preliminary Results: Whales Humpback whales Minke whales Monthly percent presence in the wind energy area (Hodge and Rice, Bioacoustics Research Program Cornell University) 17

18 Preliminary Results: Whales Fin whale Right whale Humpback whale Minke whale Daily percent presence (red) during November 2014 July 2016 (Hodge, Tielens, Estabrook and Rice, Bioacoustics Research Program Cornell University) 18

19 Estimate locations Detection ranges of the MARUs 19 (Hodge, Tielens, Estabrook and Rice, Bioacoustics Research Program Cornell University)

20 Right whale locations 739 locations of right whales from Nov Apr (Hodge and Rice, Bioacoustics Research Program Cornell University)

21 Right whale migration route Preliminary utilization Density of ship traffic. distribution during right whale High-use right whale area migration. 21 coincides with high ship traffic.

22 Credit: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, via National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Russ George 22

23 Acoustic Array C-POD 23

24 Results: Porpoises Diel pattern in occurrence Foraging behavior determined by occurrence of feeding buzzes (inter-click interval <10ms) 24 Wingfield et al. 2017, PLoS ONE

25 Dolphin Species Sightings data from shipboard (Williams et al. 2015) and aerial surveys (Barco et al. 2015) Bottlenose dolphins Common dolphins 25

26 Preliminary Results: Dolphins Bottlenose dolphins Common dolphins Proportion of days with dolphin detections (red) Acoustic detections classified based on season and location of sightings By Wingfield and Bailey, CBL UMCES 26

27 Diurnal pattern Bottlenose dolphins Common dolphins 27 By Wingfield and Bailey, CBL UMCES

28 Dolphin whistles and ambient noise Lower background noise levels and mainly low frequency sound Higher frequency background noise levels can cause masking of calls 28 By Fouda and Bailey, CBL UMCES

29 Hydrophone testing Tested hydrophones off the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory (CBL) Pier in the Patuxent River

30 Dolphin detections - CBL Pier Average Weekly DPM July 1-6 July 7-13 Average Weekly Pier DPM July July July 28-Aug 3 Aug 4-10 Aug Aug Aug Axis Title Sept 1-7 Sept 8-14 Sept Sept Sept 29-Oct 5 Oct 6-12 DPM=Detection positive minutes indicating minutes when dolphin clicks were detected

31 Potomac River Hydrophone attached to a fisherman s pound net

32 Number of Hours Dolphin detections - Potomac May 18-May 25-May 1-Jun 8-Jun 15-Jun 22-Jun 29-Jun Day Detections for Data from 2017 currently being processed.

33 Number of Hours Dolphin detections - Potomac May 18-May 25-May 1-Jun 8-Jun 15-Jun 22-Jun 29-Jun Day Dolphin detections everyday from 9 29 June 2016.

34 Frequency Passing by or sticking around? Pier 2016 Pier 2015 Potomac DPM/Hr Photos by Chris Bache At the CBL Pier at the mouth of the Patuxent River, dolphins tend to only be detected for up to 5 minutes at a time Passing by At the mouth of the Potomac River they often stayed up to 20 minutes Sticking around for a while

35 Number of Minutes Dolphins Detected per Hour What time of day?- Potomac In May, dolphins were detected most frequently in the early morning (4am-9am). In June, dolphins were detected during all hours of the day, but most frequently during the night and early morning (10pm-3am) Hour of Day Photo by Chris Moe May June Graph by Macy Cunningham, CBL UMCES

36 Number of Minutes Dolphins Detected Dolphin detections and tidal state Patuxent CBL Pier Note: 0 = High water and hours before/after Potomac Pound net Graphs by Macy Cunningham, CBL UMCES Tidal State

37 Number of Minutes Dolphins Detected Dolphin detections and tidal state Two peaks Patuxent CBL Pier Note: 0 = High water and hours before/after Potomac Pound net Graphs by Macy Cunningham, CBL UMCES Occur at all tidal states, but peak during ebb tide Tidal State

38 Aerial Surveys In collaboration with Southwings

39 Flights in April, May, June, July, October-but no dolphins sighted! 39

40 Sightings and Flight Track 40

41 WE NEED YOU! Launched 28 th June Users can view and report dolphin sightings. Over 1,300 users and 700 sightings in the first month.

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43 Sightings and acoustic detections Sightings of dolphins in the Chesapeake Bay follow a seasonal pattern Most frequently seen in June and July, continuing into September Acoustic detections from C-POD in the Patuxent River follow a similar pattern 43

44 Bottlenose dolphins 44

45 Bottlenose dolphins Video by Ken Vinson on his paddle board 45

46 Bottlenose dolphins Video by Dana Scanlon, 25 th June

47 From a drone Video by Trevor Strand, 26 th June

48 Confirmed sightings 48

49 How you can help! 1. VISIT 2. DONATE to the project! We need your help to fix and calibrate our dolphin listening devices so we can use them next summer. Help us raise $400 with a small donation! Click Donate on ChesapeakeDolphinWatch.org 49

50 Learn more about our research Visit our website:

51 Acknowledgements Thank you to Shannon Lyons, pilots Larry Petro and Ron Baker and all of SouthWings. Jessica Wingfield, Leila Fouda, Jamie Testa, Macy Cunningham, and everyone who assisted with the field data collection and analysis. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources secured the funding for the offshore project from the Maryland Energy Administration s Offshore Wind Development Fund and the U.S. Department of Interior s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Environmental Studies Program. The Chesapeake DolphinWatch web-based app was funded by the Chesapeake Bay Trust and Tracks Software. 51

52 Photo courtesy of Chris Bache, Hull Creek, 1 October 2017 Thank you! For more information please contact: Helen Bailey (hbailey@umces.edu) 52