Acoustic whale tracking log of the 2013 Antarctic Blue Whale Voyage to the Southern Ocean

Brief description

During the 2013 Antarctic Blue Whale Voyage Acousticians noted all whale calls and other acoustic events that were detected during real-time monitoring in a Sonobuoy Event Log. A written summary of the event log was recorded during data collection at approximately 15 minute intervals, and this summary comprises the Whale Tracking Log.

- The acoustician on-duty recorded the average bearings or locations of each calling whale/group every 15 minutes in the written Whale Tracking Log.
- Entries in the written Sonobuoy Tracking Log (on the bench in the acoustics workstation) also include total number of different whales heard in that 15 minute interval.
- If multiple whales/groups were detected, then the acoustician on-duty, in consultation with the lead acoustician and/or voyage management designateded one of the whales the 'target' whale, and attempted to encounter this target first.
- When targeting a whale/group, the acoustician on-duty continued to track all other whales/groups in the area as these tracked whales/groups may become the next target after obtaining concluding with the current target.

Date: (UTC) written only at top of datasheet

Time: (UTC) on the hour, 15 past, half past, and 15 to.

Track: Unique identifier for each whale/group tracked in the past 15 minutes.
Each track will have:

Location: Either an average bearing from a sonobuoy (eg 220 degrees from SB18) or a Lat/Lon from the most recent triangulation

Notes: What is the vessel action with respect to this tracked whale/group? (eg. Is this the current or previous 'target'? Are we presently photographing this whale? Did we finish photographing the whale?) Has the whale gone silent? Has this track crossed paths with another?

Lineage

Progress Code: completed

Statement: The whale tracking log contains only information that was recorded by acousticians during the 2013 Antarctic Blue Whale Voyage. This information may include data summaries as well as assumptions and interpretations of acoustic location data by the acousticians on-duty during the voyage. Data have not been corrected or post-processed in any way. Thus these logs represent the state of real-time acoustic localisation during the 2013 Voyage.

Notes

Purpose
The purpose of the whale tracking log was to assist the acoustician and voyage management in steering the ship towards acoustically detected groups of Antarctic blue whales, and keeping track of groups of vocalising whales.