Additional Information for General Permit Application for Whales and Dolphins (section 238)
Q6 – Persons carrying out actions under the permit (cont.)
Professional participants
/ Qualifications / ExperienceRob Slade / BSc, PhD / More than 20 years working with marine mammals inc. PhD in elephant seal genetics. Main role will be as coxswain on one of the small research boats due to his considerable experience driving close to whales for research. Another veteran of the 2010 & 2011 experiments.
Q7 – A permit covering the same activities for adjacent state waters is current (attached).
Q8 – Previous permits have been obtained from both the Queensland and Commonwealth Governments to carry out most aspects of this study including the use of Dtags, satellite tags and shallow biopsying sampling.
Additional Information for Supplementary Form A – Whales and Dolphins (Cetaceans)
Q1. Additional notes:
· Several types of activity will occur that will require permitting under the Act
· Many whales may be subjected to more than one type of activity, so the numbers involved will vary with different activity types
· The activities that require permitting include (i) approaching whales to within 100m, (ii) collecting biopsy skin samples, (iii) attaching suction cup tags to whales, (iv) taking fluke photographs of whales, (vi) implantation of satellite tracking tags to whales.
· The work covered by this application includes small field projects during the southward migration of the whales in October 2012 and, if required, during the northward migration of the whales in June/July 2013. This is part of the Behavioural Responses of Australian Humpback whales to Seismic Surveys (BRAHSS) project. This project is intended to inform us about how whales respond to air gun noise, whether the reactions are within the bounds of normal reactions otherwise seen in response to natural stimuli, and which components of the interactions are most important. In 2010 we conducted the first year of work under permit 2010-0002 using a single 20 cubic inch air gun. The reactions of the whales were carefully documented and although reactions were observed, they were more muted than we anticipated, generally expressing themselves as subtle changes in speed, direct and dive pattern. The work was continued with a second experiment using larger airguns in 2011. This year (2012) we are not undertaking another large experiment, but wish to undertake a small period of fieldwork with no exposures to refine our tagging techniques and to gain more background information about the undisturbed behaviour of the whales. If necessary (depending on the results of this year’s short field effort) we may also conduct another small field season during the northward migration (June/July) in 2013. A further two years of exposure experiment work are planned off the coast off Western Australia in 2013 and 2014 but we will apply separately for permits for these.
Q4 – The Action
4.1 Introduction
There is currently a great deal of concern about the potential impacts of underwater noise on marine mammals and the oil and gas extraction industry is considered one of the main acoustic polluters. Prospecting for oil and gas deposits at sea involves ships towing large arrays of seismic air guns which generate a very loud bang every 10 to 15 seconds or so. These loud impulsive sounds travel through the water column, penetrate the sea bed and reflect off various rock strata. These faint reflections are picked up by hundreds of hydrophones (underwater microphones) towed behind the same ship and enables the development of a picture of the undersea geology of the area. When conducting a survey, the air guns operate 24h per day for weeks.
The sounds produced are loud and broadband (covering a great range of acoustic frequencies) but most of the energy is at low frequency (tens to hundreds of Hz) and there is concern that these sounds may affect baleen whales in particular as they use similar frequencies for communication and are likely to have hearing sensitive to these frequencies. The effects of these sounds may include a range of things extending from hearing damage if the whales are very close to the air guns (within hundreds of metres) to behavioural reactions at distances of many, perhaps many tens, of kilometres. ‘Behavioural changes’ itself may include a range of effects such as displacement from important habitats to avoidance behaviours to mild and transitory changes in diving behaviour.
Regulations currently exist in Australia and other countries that effectively require ‘power-downs’ if whales are sighted within 1 to 2 km of the air gun array (depending on array power) and ‘shut-downs’ of air guns if whales are sighted within 500m of the array. While these guidelines are useful for preventing hearing damage, they do not attempt to prevent or tackle the potentially much larger issue of behavioural reactions to the air guns. One problem is that the term ‘behavioural reactions’ itself covers a wide range of potential behaviours some of which may indicate a significant negative impact on the whales (e.g. separation of mothers and calves) while others may be incidental and of little importance (e.g. small changes in dive behaviour or transitory avoidance behaviour) or even of benefit to the whales (e.g. prompting the whales to move out of the path of the seismic ship thereby reducing acoustic exposure and reducing the risk of collision with the ship). The nature and importance of these reactions, and the factors that may elicit them (e.g. how loud the sound is, how far away the air guns are, the social behaviour of the whales) have not been comprehensively studied and are not understood. In fact, not only are the nature of behavioural reactions to seismic not known, but the scope of normal, unaffected humpback whale avoidance behaviours, elicited in response to normal, natural, harmless stimuli such as other humpback whales, is only partly understood.
This program is a continuation of projects conducted in 2003, 2004 and 2008 which attempted to determine the range of behavioural reactions of humpback whales to normal stimuli (e.g. the presence of, or acoustic calls and songs from, other whales) and compare these with reactions to the playback of (i) humpback whale social calls and (ii) artificial tones. The current project applies the same principles and basic experimental design but uses seismic air guns as the ‘playback’ stimulus rather than tones or humpback social sounds. The program aims to (i) measure the behavioural reactions of humpback whales to seismic air gun signals over a range of received levels (acoustic levels or loudness at the whale) and distances from the playback vessel, (ii) determine which factors (covariates) such as received level, distance to the air guns, direction of source vessel travel, concurrent social behaviour of the whales, etc, have the biggest effect on the behavioural response, (iii) test ‘ramp-up’ or ‘soft-start’ as a mitigation measure, and (iv) determine whether behaviours elicited are within the normal suite of behaviours used by the whales in response to normal, natural signals, or whether they are ‘abnormal’ and therefore possibly indicate harmful reactions or behaviours.
The full proposed program of fieldwork originally included field projects in September and October 2010 - 2013 during the whales’ southward migration past southeast Queensland and the Exmouth Gulf region of Western Australia. The first years of the study were undertaken in 2010 and 2011 under permits 2010-0002 and 2011-0005 (as well as Queensland state government permits and University of Queensland animal ethics approvals). Humpback whales were observed from multiple platforms as they migrated along the coast between Noosa and Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast north of Brisbane. During experimental trials, observations were made on passing whales before, during and after exposure to a single 20 cubic inch (cui) seismic air gun, an array of airguns with total volume of 140 cui and a ‘ramp-up’ of an array of airguns through 20, 60, 140 and 440 cui. In addition, a small number of whales were tagged with temporary behavioural tags (‘Dtags’) held on by suction cups, or satellite tags. During non-experimental periods, normal, undisturbed behaviours were measured by remote visual and acoustic observation and recording. Together with behavioural observations collected over the full program of work, these behavioural observations will allow us to determine the range of normal behaviours to natural stimuli and contrast these with behaviours during seismic exposure experiments.
The field site for the east Australian work, Peregian Beach (see attached map), is an inshore site that we have used in many previous studies including previous BRSs using whale social sounds and artificial tones (Dunlop et al., in review) and other studies of normal behaviour over the last 14 years (Noad & Cato, 2001, 2007; Noad et al, 2004; Dunlop et al., 2007, 2008, 2010; Smith et al., 2008). Many whales migrate close to the coast here making it an excellent place for experimental work.
4.2 The proposed 2012/2013 work
Although we originally envisaged conducting the third big experiment in 2012 off the coast of WA, it was decided earlier this year that we needed a one year gap in our field program to more fully analyse the data already collected in order to refine our methodology for the WA experiments. This will give us stronger results with minimal disturbance to whales when we do start work in WA. However, rather than a large BRS, we would still like to conduct a small program of fieldwork in October 2012 and possibly June/July 2013 to refine our tagging methodology and to gain more data on undisturbed whales to provide context for the results of our experiments.
The methodology for these small interim fieldtrips will include some of those used in the larger field experiments (tagging, photo ID, biopsy) but will NOT include any use of airguns or other types of experimental acoustic exposure and will not involve land-based observers. The team will be much smaller and the field seasons much shorter than for the large experiments. Although small by comparison and not involving any experimental exposures, these field experiments are still an important part of our larger program.
Details of field techniques will follow those of previous applications:
· Dtags will be deployed onto whales using either a 6m or 14m carbon fibre pole from one of two small (5.6 and 6m) boats. Dtags stick on to the whales using 4 suction cups and are programmed to fall off at a pre-determined time. They are non-invasive.
· An Acousonde 3B tag will be trialled. This is similar to a Dtag in that it collects movement data and acoustic data. It is also held on to the whale by suction cups but has no timer. The tag is almost certain to fall off within 24h however, and attached satellite and VHF transmitters will be used to find and retrieve it once detached. It will also be deployed by pole as per the Dtags.
· Newly developed satellite tags, the Z-tag, will be deployed. These tags stay mainly on the outside of the whale but are held on by three prongs, each approximately 80 mm long. The instrument package containing satellite and VHF transmitters will detach after a pre-determined time (up to 48 h) and will be tracked down and retrieved by small boat. The frame with the barbs stays attached to the whale initially, but is likely to fall out of the whale within a day or two after that. The tags are deployed either using a pneumatic gun (modified line-thrower) or by pole. We will try both methods.
· Biopsy samples will be collected from whales tagged/ observed for genetic sexing. Knowing the sex of the whales observed is important for interpreting their behaviour and this is the most reliable way of determining that. Biopsies are collected by shooting the whales with a plastic dart with stainless steel biopsy tip. Upon impacting on the whale, it collects a small sample of skin and blubber (approx. 15 mm long and 8 mm diameter), bouncing off the whale and floating until collection by the boat. This is a widely accepted way of collecting biopsies in a minimally invasive way and is used on cetaceans, including dolphins, all around the world.
· Calves will not be biopsied or tagged.
· Fluke and dorsal photographs will be taken of whales encountered and will be contributed towards the Australian humpback whales photo ID catalog for comparison with others’ photos.
A. The equipment and methods used to comply with the EPBC Act Regulations.
Equipment used will include a Paxarm biopsy rifle for collecting small skin/blubber samples, digital tags (Dtags) and satellite tags (Z-tags) for measuring behaviours including swim course and speed and dive profile. Digital SLR cameras will be used for fluke identification photos.
The Paxarm biopsy rifle system is now commonly used for cetacean biopsies, including those of small dolphins, around the world. It is considered safe and reliable. The size of the biopsy sample is small – approximately 8mm in diameter and 15mm long. Several studies have examined the effects of biopsy on humpback whales. In more than 50% of cases, the whales display no overt sign of being darted, while in most other cases the reaction is very mild (e.g sounding rapidly, a tail flick) (e.g. Brown et al., 1995). Indeed, Smith et al. (1999), in a large photo ID and biopsy study of humpbacks in the North Atlantic that included the collection of more than 2000 biopsy samples, concluded that the effect of biopsy was so small that it did not matter whether photos or biopsies were obtained first. These studies confirm our own observations from biopsying performed at the same site and time of year in 2002, 2003 and 2004. On impact, the biopsy darts immediately bounce out of the whale and float awaiting pickup. Only one biopsy will be taken from each whale and calves will not be biopsied. The biopsy tips are sterilized by soaking in alcohol and flaming before each use to minimise the risk of infection.