2025/01/01 by Katie Kowarski, Julien Delarue, Emily Maxner +1 · 1 voice
Environmental Science · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Marine animal studies overview #Animal Vocal Communication and Behavior #Underwater Acoustics Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.1139/cjz-2025-0043
openalex publication_date 2025/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/26
There is limited information on the distribution of pinnipeds beyond known haul-out or whelping sites, particularly in offshore areas. In the waters off Atlantic Canada, this knowledge gap limits our ability to understand baseline habitat use and assess distribution changes through time. We used a large passive acoustic monitoring dataset to determine the acoustic presence of pinnipeds from Labrador to Nova Scotia. Acoustic data were collected from bottom-mounted recorders from 2015 to 2017 at 20 stations, with several in deep offshore waters. An initial application of automated marine mammal detectors and manual validation highlighted 12 stations with seasonal pinniped presence. Additional manual review was completed on these 12 stations to describe the occurrence of pinniped signals. Five pinniped species (hooded seal Cystophora cristata Erxleben, 1777, bearded seal Erignathus barbatus barbatus Erxleben, 1777, grey seal Halichoerus grypus Nehring, 1866, harp seal Pagophilus groenlandicus Erxleben, 1777, and walrus Odobenus rosmarus Linnaeus, 1758) were detected in the data. Pinnipeds were acoustically present primarily in winter and spring, periods when pinnipeds are most vocally active and when sea ice is available as a pupping substrate off Atlantic Canada. These findings highlight offshore regions where species have previously gone unreported and can be used in future work to assess changes in distribution as climate shifts impact sea ice cover.