Drs. Marla Holt, Brad Hanson, and Candice Emmons of the NWFSC, along with collaborators from Cascadia Research Collective and UC Davis, are currently conducting a study using digital acoustic recording tags (DTAGs) to examine sound exposure, sound use, and behavior of Southern Resident killer whales (SRKWs) in core summer habitat. The DTAG is suction cup attached and consists of a number of different sensors that record sound, pitch, roll, heading, and depth. The tag was developed by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution specifically to monitor the behavior of marine mammals and their response to sound, continuously throughout the dive cycle. Prey samples and vessel data are also concurrently collected relative to tagged whales in a manner similar to previous work. The project research goals include the following: (1) Measure noise levels in biological relevant frequency ranges that are received by individual SRKWs. (2) Quantify the relationship between vessels and received noise levels. (3) Determine acoustic behavior during different activities and matched with fine scale details on movement, especially those indicative of foraging. (4) Quantify foraging efforts and determine potential effects of vessels and associated noise levels. The results of this study will provide pertinent data to address multiple risk factors of SRKWs including vessel disturbance, noise exposure, effects on foraging, and cumulative effects. The specific work that will be done includes experimental design, data collection, data analysis, and writing for submission to peer-reviewed journals. Southern resident killer whale tag data.

This record represents killer whale sound production. Killer whale calls were detected by analysts and logged using Triton's Logger Remora. Calls were grouped into encounters, with encounters more than 30 min apart being logged as separate encounters. The following settings were used for manual scanning of long-term spectral averages: bandwidth 0-5000 Hz; 1 hour duration; and for zoomed-in scanning of spectrograms: plot length 30 s, FFT length 1000, 90% overlap. Killer whale encounters were further classified into ecotypes based on the presence of ecotype-specific call types in the encounter. Call types were identified in the spectrogram window, and all calls in an encounter were examined before an encounter was attributed to a particular ecotype. Resident ecotype call types were identified from the reference catalogue of Ford 1987, transient ecotype call types were identified from a reference catalogue based on recordings published by Deecke 2003, and offshore ecotype call types were identified from a digital catalogue (J Ford, unpubl. data) collected during field encounters with photo- or genetically identified offshore killer whales.These data were recorded at SanctSound Site OC02_01 between March 08, 2019 and April 24, 2019.

This record represents killer whale sound production. Killer whale calls were detected by analysts and logged using Triton's Logger Remora. Calls were grouped into encounters, with encounters more than 30 min apart being logged as separate encounters. The following settings were used for manual scanning of long-term spectral averages: bandwidth 0-5000 Hz; 1 hour duration; and for zoomed-in scanning of spectrograms: plot length 30 s, FFT length 1000, 90% overlap. Killer whale encounters were further classified into ecotypes based on the presence of ecotype-specific call types in the encounter. Call types were identified in the spectrogram window, and all calls in an encounter were examined before an encounter was attributed to a particular ecotype. Resident ecotype call types were identified from the reference catalogue of Ford 1987, transient ecotype call types were identified from a reference catalogue based on recordings published by Deecke 2003, and offshore ecotype call types were identified from a digital catalogue (J Ford, unpubl. data) collected during field encounters with photo- or genetically identified offshore killer whales.These data were recorded at SanctSound Site OC01_01 between March 08, 2019 and July 08, 2019.

This record represents killer whale sound production. Killer whale calls were detected by analysts and logged using Triton's Logger Remora. Calls were grouped into encounters, with encounters more than 30 min apart being logged as separate encounters. The following settings were used for manual scanning of long-term spectral averages: bandwidth 0-5000 Hz; 1 hour duration; and for zoomed-in scanning of spectrograms: plot length 30 s, FFT length 1000, 90% overlap. Killer whale encounters were further classified into ecotypes based on the presence of ecotype-specific call types in the encounter. Call types were identified in the spectrogram window, and all calls in an encounter were examined before an encounter was attributed to a particular ecotype. Resident ecotype call types were identified from the reference catalogue of Ford 1987, transient ecotype call types were identified from a reference catalogue based on recordings published by Deecke 2003, and offshore ecotype call types were identified from a digital catalogue (J Ford, unpubl. data) collected during field encounters with photo- or genetically identified offshore killer whales.These data were recorded at SanctSound Site OC02_04 between July 13, 2020 and October 01, 2020.

This record represents killer whale sound production. Killer whale calls were detected by analysts and logged using Triton's Logger Remora. Calls were grouped into encounters, with encounters more than 30 min apart being logged as separate encounters. The following settings were used for manual scanning of long-term spectral averages: bandwidth 0-5000 Hz; 1 hour duration; and for zoomed-in scanning of spectrograms: plot length 30 s, FFT length 1000, 90% overlap. Killer whale encounters were further classified into ecotypes based on the presence of ecotype-specific call types in the encounter. Call types were identified in the spectrogram window, and all calls in an encounter were examined before an encounter was attributed to a particular ecotype. Resident ecotype call types were identified from the reference catalogue of Ford 1987, transient ecotype call types were identified from a reference catalogue based on recordings published by Deecke 2003, and offshore ecotype call types were identified from a digital catalogue (J Ford, unpubl. data) collected during field encounters with photo- or genetically identified offshore killer whales.These data were recorded at SanctSound Site OC04_04 between August 04, 2020 and December 21, 2020.

This record represents killer whale sound production. Killer whale calls were detected by analysts and logged using Triton's Logger Remora. Calls were grouped into encounters, with encounters more than 30 min apart being logged as separate encounters. The following settings were used for manual scanning of long-term spectral averages: bandwidth 0-5000 Hz; 1 hour duration; and for zoomed-in scanning of spectrograms: plot length 30 s, FFT length 1000, 90% overlap. Killer whale encounters were further classified into ecotypes based on the presence of ecotype-specific call types in the encounter. Call types were identified in the spectrogram window, and all calls in an encounter were examined before an encounter was attributed to a particular ecotype. Resident ecotype call types were identified from the reference catalogue of Ford 1987, transient ecotype call types were identified from a reference catalogue based on recordings published by Deecke 2003, and offshore ecotype call types were identified from a digital catalogue (J Ford, unpubl. data) collected during field encounters with photo- or genetically identified offshore killer whales.These data were recorded at SanctSound Site OC02_02 between July 11, 2019 and October 30, 2019.

This record represents killer whale sound production. Killer whale calls were detected by analysts and logged using Triton's Logger Remora. Calls were grouped into encounters, with encounters more than 30 min apart being logged as separate encounters. The following settings were used for manual scanning of long-term spectral averages: bandwidth 0-5000 Hz; 1 hour duration; and for zoomed-in scanning of spectrograms: plot length 30 s, FFT length 1000, 90% overlap. Killer whale encounters were further classified into ecotypes based on the presence of ecotype-specific call types in the encounter. Call types were identified in the spectrogram window, and all calls in an encounter were examined before an encounter was attributed to a particular ecotype. Resident ecotype call types were identified from the reference catalogue of Ford 1987, transient ecotype call types were identified from a reference catalogue based on recordings published by Deecke 2003, and offshore ecotype call types were identified from a digital catalogue (J Ford, unpubl. data) collected during field encounters with photo- or genetically identified offshore killer whales.These data were recorded at SanctSound Site OC04_02 between August 20, 2019 and September 05, 2019.

This record represents killer whale sound production. Killer whale calls were detected by analysts and logged using Triton's Logger Remora. Calls were grouped into encounters, with encounters more than 30 min apart being logged as separate encounters. The following settings were used for manual scanning of long-term spectral averages: bandwidth 0-5000 Hz; 1 hour duration; and for zoomed-in scanning of spectrograms: plot length 30 s, FFT length 1000, 90% overlap. Killer whale encounters were further classified into ecotypes based on the presence of ecotype-specific call types in the encounter. Call types were identified in the spectrogram window, and all calls in an encounter were examined before an encounter was attributed to a particular ecotype. Resident ecotype call types were identified from the reference catalogue of Ford 1987, transient ecotype call types were identified from a reference catalogue based on recordings published by Deecke 2003, and offshore ecotype call types were identified from a digital catalogue (J Ford, unpubl. data) collected during field encounters with photo- or genetically identified offshore killer whales.These data were recorded at SanctSound Site OC01_03 between November 02, 2019 and April 10, 2020.

This record represents killer whale sound production. Killer whale calls were detected by analysts and logged using Triton's Logger Remora. Calls were grouped into encounters, with encounters more than 30 min apart being logged as separate encounters. The following settings were used for manual scanning of long-term spectral averages: bandwidth 0-5000 Hz; 1 hour duration; and for zoomed-in scanning of spectrograms: plot length 30 s, FFT length 1000, 90% overlap. Killer whale encounters were further classified into ecotypes based on the presence of ecotype-specific call types in the encounter. Call types were identified in the spectrogram window, and all calls in an encounter were examined before an encounter was attributed to a particular ecotype. Resident ecotype call types were identified from the reference catalogue of Ford 1987, transient ecotype call types were identified from a reference catalogue based on recordings published by Deecke 2003, and offshore ecotype call types were identified from a digital catalogue (J Ford, unpubl. data) collected during field encounters with photo- or genetically identified offshore killer whales.These data were recorded at SanctSound Site OC03_03 between August 02, 2020 and October 31, 2020.

This record represents manual detection of humpback whale sounds. Humpback presence was determined by manually scanning long-term spectral averages (LTSAs) in the Triton MATLAB software package. Acoustic files were decimated to a sample rate of 4 kHz before generating 5 s, 1 Hz LTSAs. The LTSA was scanned by a trained analyst in hourly bins for visual evidence of song and non-song humpback vocalizations. Detections were aurally confirmed. These data were recorded at SanctSound Site OC02_01 between March 08, 2019 and April 24, 2019.