Localisation of North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) sounds using hydrophone arrays in the Bay of Fundy

The highly endangered North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis ) population stands at <350 individuals. Population recovery depends on the reduction of ship-strike and entanglement mortalities. Grand Manan Basin, Bay of Fundy, is a primary summer and autumn feeding and nursery habitat for much of the population and overlaps a busy international shipping lane. Passive acoustic localisation of right whale sounds could augment weather- and cost-limited visual surveys and thus reduce the probability of anthropogenic mortality.;In 1999, a 3-h free-drifting 17-sonobuoy array pilot study provided 94 two-dimensional localisations of right whale sounds using arrival time differences determined from spectrogram cross-correlation analyses of two distinct sound types: tonal and gunshot.;In 2000, arrays of four fixed-location ocean-bottom hydrophones were used to localise right whale sounds over four 11-h periods (two in daytime and two at nighttime). The results were compared to sonobuoy results. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...