15: Off-range Beaked Whale Studies (ORBS): Baseline Data and Tagging Development for Northern Bottlenose Whales (Hyperoodon Ampulatus) Off Jan Mayen, Norway

The question of how beaked whales are affected by naval sonar is important for the US Navy as information is required for accurate environmental assessments. A number of recent studies have reported behavioral responses of a small number of beaked whales to experimentally-presented sonar signals (Tyack et al., 2011; DeRuiter et al., 2013; Stimpert et al., 2014, Miller et al., 2015). These studies indicate that beaked whales do respond behaviorally to sonar, typically showing a combination of avoidance and cessation of feeding, with responses to simulated sonar starting at low received levels. These types of behavioral changes are confirmed by monitoring of vocal activity using Navy range hydrophones (Tyack et al., 2011; Moretti et al., 2014), and are consistent with longer-term movement of beaked whales around the AUTEC range (Tyack et al., 2011).