Australian Marine Mammal Centre, Australian Antarctic Division, Channel Highway, Kingston, Tasmania, 7050, Australia.
Southwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 8901 La Jolla Shores Drive, La Jolla, California 92037.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2014 Mar;135(3):1616-23. doi: 10.1121/1.4863647.
Previous underwater recordings made in New Zealand have identified a complex sequence of low frequency sounds that have been attributed to blue whales based on similarity to blue whale songs in other areas. Recordings of sounds with these characteristics were made opportunistically during the Southern Ocean Research Partnership's recent Antarctic Blue Whale Voyage. Detections of these sounds occurred all around the South Island of New Zealand during the voyage transits from Nelson, New Zealand to the Antarctic and return. By following acoustic bearings from directional sonobuoys, blue whales were visually detected and confirmed as the source of these sounds. These recordings, together with the historical recordings made northeast of New Zealand, indicate song types that persist over several decades and are indicative of the year-round presence of a population of blue whales that inhabits the waters around New Zealand. Measurements of the four-part vocalizations reveal that blue whale song in this region has changed slowly, but consistently over the past 50 years. The most intense units of these calls were detected as far south as 53°S, which represents a considerable range extension compared to the limited prior data on the spatial distribution of this population.
先前在新西兰进行的水下录音工作识别出了一系列低频声音，这些声音与其他地区的蓝鲸之歌相似，被归因于蓝鲸。在最近的南大洋研究伙伴关系的南极蓝鲸航行中，有机会记录到了具有这些特征的声音。在从新西兰纳尔逊到南极的航行中，在新西兰南岛周围的整个航程中都检测到了这些声音。通过从定向声纳浮标跟随声纳方位，视觉上检测到并确认蓝鲸是这些声音的来源。这些录音，加上在新西兰东北部进行的历史录音，表明了持续几十年的歌曲类型，这表明在新西兰周围水域常年存在一个蓝鲸种群。对这四个部分的发声进行的测量表明，该地区的蓝鲸歌声在过去 50 年中缓慢但持续地发生了变化。这些叫声中最强烈的部分在南纬 53°处被检测到，与之前关于该种群空间分布的有限数据相比，这代表了一个相当大的范围延伸。
