Session 5 aSA Structural Acoustics and Vibration : Shells and Plates Jeffrey

William A. Watkins, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ~WHOI!, led the development and refinement of the WHOI Radio Whale Tag. The initial tags were developed in the 1960s at WHOI, improved in the 1970s and 1980s by Ocean Applied Research, Inc., and adapted to satellite telemetry in the 1990s by Microwave Telemetry, Inc. Through this entire period, the tag delivery and attachment methods were continually refined. The same delivery and attachment methods were used with acoustic tags, radio tags, combined radio and acoustic tags, and satellite tags. Scientific studies using these tags have been conducted on finback, humpback, Brydes, bowhead, and sperm whales. These field studies have ranged from Venezuela to the Canadian arctic and Alaska, and from the Pacific to the Mediterranean. Every tagging experiment led to new information about the animals, and in most cases the information from radio and acoustic tagged whales showed that the best available data based on surface observations of untagged animals were deficient. Highlights from some of these findings will be presented.