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Additional Information for General Permit Application for Whales and Dolphins (section 238) Additional information for the section in the application: Q6. Give the relevant qualifications and experience of all people who will carry out the actions

Professional participants

Qualifications

Experience

Christine  Erbe   PhD  MSc  BSc   Christine  has  worked  in  marine  mammal  bioacoustics,  call  repertoires  and  noise  impacts  on  marine  mammals  for  21  years.  Much  of  her  work  has  focussed  on  N  American  species  (eg  beluga  whales,  killer  whales),  as  part  of  her  PhD  at  the  University  of  British  Columbia,  Canada,  her  postdoc  at  the  University  of  Victoria,  Canada,  and  her  subsequent  work  as  a  research  scientist  at  the  Federal  Department  of  Fisheries  &  Oceans  Canada.  Christine  is  an  expert  in  masking,  ie  the  interference  of  man-­‐made  noise  with  animal  calls.  

Robert  McCauley   PhD  BSc   >25  years  working  on  measurement  of  acoustic  environments,  and  >18  years  on  assessment  of  noise  impacts  on  fauna,  including  whales,  turtles,  fish,  squid,  and  zooplankton.  Coordination  &  management  of  large  multi-­‐disciplinary  projects  in  coastal  &  offshore  waters,  involving  extensive  logistical,  HSE,  and  mitigation  planning.  Successfully  ran  16  permitted  exposure  experiments  with  humpbacks.  

Chandra  Salgado-­‐Kent  

BSc   More  than  10  years  of  research  on  baleen  whales  including  population  assessment  and  behavioural  responses  to  acoustic  sources;    including  work  from  vessels,  aircrafts,  and  land-­‐based  in  coastal  and  offshore  locations.  Experience  in  coordinating  and  leading  research  projects,  including  logistics,  HSE,  and  mitigation.      

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Claire  Charlton   BSc   Claire  Charlton  is  a  PhD  candidate  at  the  Centre  for  Science  and  Technology  and  has  over  8  years’  experience  working  in  cetacean  biology.  Claire  has  worked  on  southern  right  whale  and  dolphin  acoustics  in  South  Australia  and  is  a  primary  investigator  of  the  long-­‐term  southern  right  whale  population  monitoring  in  the  Great  Australian  Bight.    

Rebecca  Wellard   BSc  (Hons)   Rebecca  has  over  10  years  experience  in  marine  megafauna  and  has  been  involved  in  numerous  cetacean  research  projects  both  in  Australia  and  worldwide,  incl.  projects  on  bioacoustics,  genetics/biopsy,  population  ecology,  and  anthropogenic  effects  on  cetaceans.  She  has  extensive  field  based  experience,  both  onshore  and  offshore,  incl.  visual  and  acoustic  recording  and  monitoring  and  photo-­‐identification  of  many  species  of  marine  mammals.  She  has  experience  at  manoeuvring  small  vessels  in  close  proximity  to  cetaceans  and  at  interpreting  cetacean  behaviour.  She  completed  her  BSc  in  marine  biology  and  zoology  at  the  University  of  Melbourne  and  received  First  Class  honours  at  Monash  University  in  Victoria  on  a  research  project  looking  at  acoustic  communication  and  anthropogenic  impact  on  the  bottlenose  dolphins  in  Victoria.  Rebecca  specialises  in  bioacoustics  and  cetacean  behaviour,  and  has  a  broad  experience  working  in  various  capacities  with  numerous  university  acoustic  labs  both  Australia  and  worldwide.  

Leila  Fouda   MSc,  BSc  (Hons)  

BSc(Hons)  Marine  Biology.  2.1.  The  University  of  St  Andrews.  MSc  Conservation  Science.  Distinction.  Imperial  College  London.  Leila  has  worked  as  a  marine  mammal  researcher  for  the  last  six  years  and  has  extensive  experience  in  marine  mammal  data  collection.  She  is  skilled  in  behavioural  monitoring,  scan  sampling,  focal  follows,  photo-­‐identification  photography,  hydrophone  deployment  and  has  also  matched  and  managed  a  20-­‐year-­‐catalogye  of  dolphin  photo-­‐identification  images.  Leila  has  previously  completed  research  on  marine  mammal  vocalisations  during  her  Bachelor’s  degree  in  marine  biology  and  on  vessel  noise  in  critical  marine  wildlife  habitat  in  British  Columbia  during  her  Masters  degree  in  Conservation  Science.  

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Additional Information for Supplementary Form A – Whales and Dolphins Q1. Additional rows:

Column 1 Common name of species.

Common and scientific names are available at the

Departmental website: http://www.environment.gov.au/erin/applications/biodiversity/sprat/

Column 2 Scientific name of

species

Column 3 Conservation status of

threatened species under EPBC Act (e.g. the blue whale is endangered

EN)

Codes for Column 3 EW Extinct in the wild EX Extinct CE Critically endangered EN Endangered VU Vulnerable CD Conservation dependent

Column 4 Estimated number

that will be affected.

Column 5 Type of effect

Codes for Column 5 IC Interfering with a cetacean IN Injuring TA Taking KE Keeping MO Moving TC Treating PO Possessing

Pygmy sperm whale Kogia breviceps 5 IC

Common dolphin Delphinus delphis 150 IC

Antarctic minke whale Balaenoptera bonaerensis

20 IC

Dwarf minke whale Balaenoptera acutorostrata

20 IC

Bryde’s whale Balaenoptera edeni 20 IC

Q2 & 3. Geographic locations: We have identified six locations for this research around the W, S and E coasts of Australia.

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Location 1: Northern Great Australian Bight Approximate Permit boundary for acoustic study Lat Long

SW boundary 34 ̊00.00 129 ̊30.00

NW boundary - commonwealth water boundary 31 ̊40.00 129 ̊30.00

NE boundary - commonwealth water boundary 32 ̊00.00 132 ̊50.00

SE boundary 34 ̊00.00 132 ̊50.00

Location 2: IMOS NSW Approximate Permit boundary for acoustic study Lat Long

SW boundary 32 ̊57.00 152 ̊06.00

NW boundary - commonwealth water boundary 31 ̊50.00 152 ̊44.00

NE boundary - commonwealth water boundary 31 ̊50.00 153 ̊40.00

SE boundary 32 ̊57.00 153 ̊20.00

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Location 3: IMOS VIC Approximate Permit boundary for acoustic study Lat Long

SW boundary 38 ̊57.00 140 ̊25.00

NW boundary - commonwealth water boundary 38 ̊10.00 140 ̊25.00

NE boundary - commonwealth water boundary 38 ̊10.00 142 ̊00.00

SE boundary 38 ̊57.00 142 ̊00.00

Location 4: IMOS Perth Canyon Approximate Permit boundary for acoustic study Lat Long

SW boundary 32 ̊16.00 113 ̊36.00

NW boundary - commonwealth water boundary 31 ̊04.00 113 ̊36.00

NE boundary - commonwealth water boundary 31 ̊04.00 115 ̊35.00

SE boundary 32 ̊16.00 115 ̊35.00

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Location 5: Bremer Canyon Approximate Permit boundary for acoustic study Lat Long

SW boundary 34 ̊58.00 119 ̊07.00

NW boundary - commonwealth water boundary 34 ̊18.00 119 ̊07.00

NE boundary - commonwealth water boundary 34 ̊18.00 120 ̊01.00

SE boundary 34 ̊58.00 120 ̊01.00

Location 6: Exmouth & Ningaloo Approximate Permit boundary for acoustic study Lat Long

SW boundary 22 ̊51.00 113 ̊07.00

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NW boundary - commonwealth water boundary 21 ̊25.00 113 ̊07.00

NE boundary - commonwealth water boundary 21 ̊25.00 114 ̊44.00

SE boundary 22 ̊51.00 114 ̊44.00

Q4. Proposed action: Background The Centre for Marine Science & Technology (CMST) at Curtin University, in Perth, Western Australia, has recorded the underwater soundscape around Australia for nearly 20 years. CMST builds its own autonomous acoustic recorders. These have been involved in many hundreds of deployments over the years. Many Terabites of data has been collected. CMST also designed and maintains the passive underwater acoustic observatories of Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System. All of the IMOS data and some of the other passive acoustic data is publicly available. Passive acoustic data are rich in underwater sounds of biological sources, i.e., marine mammals, fish, crustaceans etc. Given that this data is collected autonomously, it is mostly unknown what animal made which sound. Passive acoustic recorders are becoming more widely available and “off-the-shelf”, hence many people from industry, government and research groups are busy deploying them. When the data is to be analysed, the largest unknown is typically “What made that sound?” CMST receives phone calls quite regularly from people who have deployed underwater acoustic recorders, playing sounds to us over the phone, asking us what animal that was. In most cases, we simply don’t know. CMST has many students working on marine species using passive acoustic tools. Passive acoustics is a non-invasive way of studying vocalising animals, their ecology, habitat usage, migration, population density, and anthropogenic impacts (Erbe, 2013). For these projects to be successful, it is crucial to understand the call repertoires of the

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various species. CMST has been working on a catalogue of biological underwater sounds of Australia. The catalogue will eventually be made publicly available, including sample .wav files and sound spectrograms. There are still a lot of unknown sounds and many species of which we don’t have a reasonable characterisation of their acoustic repertoire. Throughout the year, CMST has opportunities to undertake fieldwork to fill this catalogue, e.g., when the IMOS recorders are deployed and recovered, or in connection with other field work. We would like to spend a few extra days on these occasions to undertake visual observations and simultaneous acoustic recordings with a handheld hydrophone, in order to add to our catalogue. Being out in the field, doing simultaneous visual and passive acoustic observations is the only way to properly identify the sounds of marine life. This permit application is to cover these opportunistic field trips at multiple sites around Australia for the coming 5 years. Objectives and purposes

• To establish an underwater acoustic catalogue of the sounds of Australian marine life, which will be made publicly available

• To study the acoustic ecology of Australian marine life, including the impacts of underwater noise

The catalogue will be useful for ecological studies and environmental impact studies using passive acoustic tools. Proposed actions / steps to minimise impact / methods This permit application is to let CMST staff and students undertake passive acoustic recordings and visual observations of marine mammals in Commonwealth waters of Australia. Researchers will operate from a vessel and approach marine mammals while taking photo-ID images and deploying a hand-held, over-the-side-of-the-boat hydrophone to record the sounds of the animals sighted within the vicinity of the vessel. Animals will not be chased, but rather, we want the acoustic repertoire under their normal behavioural states. Animals will be approached to within a safe distance where the presence of the boat does not change the behaviour as determined by the visual observers. Q5. Related research We are hoping to collect the visual and passive acoustic data in order to establish a database of call repertoires. We don’t have any specific funding for this, but are hoping to use the permit to collect data opportunistically, e.g., when IMOS gear gets deployed or recovered, or when we have opportunities to join a vessel whose main purpose in an unrelated project. We are applying for funds to utilise commercial and permitted whale-watching tours as a platform for our research. Erbe, C. (2013). Underwater passive acoustic monitoring & noise impacts on marine

fauna--a workshop report. Acoustics Australia, 41(1), 113-119.

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