Escajeda Erica D, Stafford Kathleen M, Woodgate Rebecca A, Laidre Kristin L
School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, 1122 NE Boat St, Seattle, Washington 98105, USA.
Marine Mammal Institute, Oregon State University, 2030 SE Marine Science Dr, Newport, Oregon 97365, USA.
Mar Pollut Bull. 2023 Feb;187:114557. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2022.114557. Epub 2023 Jan 12.
The narrow Bering Strait provides the only gateway between the Pacific Ocean and the Arctic, bringing migrating marine mammals in close proximity to ships transiting the strait. We characterized ship activity in the Bering Strait during the open-water season (July-November) for 2013-2015 and quantified the impact of ship noise on third-octave sound levels (TOLs) for bands used by baleen whales (25-1000 Hz). Peak ship activity occurred in July-September with the greatest overlap in ship noise and whale vocalizations observed in October. Ships elevated sound levels by ∼4 dB on average for all TOL bands combined, and 250-Hz TOLs exceeding 100 dB re 1 μPa were recorded from two large vessels over 11 km away from the hydrophones. Our results show that ship noise has the potential to impact baleen whales in the Bering Strait and serve as a baseline for measuring future changes in ship activity in the region.
狭窄的白令海峡是太平洋与北冰洋之间的唯一通道，使得洄游的海洋哺乳动物与通过该海峡的船只距离很近。我们对2013年至2015年开放水域季节（7月至11月）白令海峡的船舶活动进行了特征描述，并量化了船舶噪声对须鲸使用频段（25 - 1000赫兹）的1/3倍频程声级（TOLs）的影响。船舶活动高峰期出现在7月至9月，10月观察到船舶噪声与鲸鱼发声的重叠最为严重。所有TOL频段的船舶噪声平均使声级提高了约4分贝，在距离水听器11公里外的两艘大型船舶上记录到250赫兹的TOL超过100分贝（相对于1微帕）。我们的研究结果表明，船舶噪声有可能对白令海峡的须鲸产生影响，并为衡量该地区未来船舶活动的变化提供了基线。
