Songs of the Sea Through Marine Acoustics

Posted on 18 Jun 2014
In Education, Science

This post was written by Saki Uchida.

When we are sailing, it is hard to see what’s inside the water but that night in the ITCZ we saw so much life.

To better understand our oceans, a passive marine acoustic recorder will be used to record dolphin, whale, reef, and anthropogenic sounds throughout the Worldwide Voyage (WWV). These sounds can be analyzed to determine amounts and types of biological activity, species diversity, habitat health, and human impacts. We anticipate that whale and dolphin sounds recorded during the WWV will provide information about species distribution and occurrence in rarely studied areas. Comparing open ocean sounds to areas with boat or ship traffic will provide information about the amount and impact of anthropogenic sounds. Recordings will be made available for teachers and students.

We saw a lot of phosphorescent plankton at night and even caught them with plankton nets. A few days ago when we were in the ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone) we saw a pod of dolphins. That night we saw many red eyes of ika (squid), malolo (flying fish), and even a small manō (shark). When we are sailing, it is hard to see what’s inside the water but that night in the ITCZ we saw so much life. Even though we are passing by an abundance of sea life, we don’t really hear them so I’m looking forward to the audio recordings that Hikianalia has been gathering throughout our voyage as we cross different latitudes on our way to Tahiti. My deepest gratitude goes out to the researchers, Whitlow Au, Jessica Chen, and Alexis Rudd from the University of Hawaiʻi for making this amazing project happen onboard Hikianalia, the science and technology canoe. It is through their project that we will gain a better understanding of marine life and our impact to the health of our ocean through the songs of our ocean animals.