A Method for Estimating the Characteristics of Acoustic Pulses Recorded on the Sakhalin Shelf for Multivariate Analysis of their Effect on the Behavior of Gray Whales

Abstract

In 2015, during seismic surveys on the northeast shelf of Sakhalin Island, measurements of acoustic pressure were conducted near the sea floor at preset monitoring locations positioned both within and at the edge of the summer-autumn feeding grounds of the Western gray whales. Forty Autonomous Underwater Acoustic Recorders (AUARs) were used for this monitoring, the measurements had a bandwidth of 2–15 000 Hz and a dynamic range of 145 dB; the total duration of these acoustic measurements was 4312 days. The objective of the monitoring presented in this article was to analyze the characteristics of acoustic pulses generated on the shelf by seismic sources and onshore foundation pile driving for multivariate analysis of the effect of these operations on the behavior of western gray whales.