Dominik André Nachtsheim, Mark Johnson, Tobias Schaffeld, Abbo van Neer, Peter T Madsen, Charlotte R Findlay, Laia Rojano-Doñate, Jonas Teilmann, Lonnie Mikkelsen, Johannes Baltzer, Andreas Ruser, Ursula Siebert, Joseph G Schnitzler
The North Sea faces intense ship traffic owing to increasing human activities at sea. As harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) are abundant top predators in the North Sea, it is hypothesised that they experience repeated, high-amplitude vessel exposures. Here, we test this hypothesis by quantifying vessel noise exposures from deployments of long-term sound and movement tags (DTAGs) on nine harbour seals from the Wadden Sea. An automated tool was developed to detect intervals of elevated noise in the sound recordings...
April 15, 2023: Scientific Reports