02098nas a2200229   4500008004100000245010100041210006900142260001600211520135800227653003101585653002501616653002001641653002001661653001601681653001201697653002201709100002301731700002401754700001901778700002801797856004301825       2017                        eng d00aEstimation of minke whale abundance from an acoustic line transect survey of the Mariana Islands0 aEstimation of minke whale abundance from an acoustic line transe  cJan-03-20173 a<p>The minke whale is one of the most abundant species of baleen whales worldwide, yet is rarely sighted in subtropical waters. In the North Pacific, they produce a dis- tinctive sound known as the &ldquo;boing,&rdquo; which can be used to acoustically localize indi- viduals. A vessel-based survey using both visual and passive acoustic monitoring was conducted during the spring of 2007 in a large (616,000 km 2 ) study area encom- passing the Mariana Islands. We applied line transect methods to data collected from a towed hydrophone array to estimate the abundance of calling minke whales in our study area. No minke whales were sighted, but there were hundreds of acoustic detections of boings. Computer algorithms were developed to localize calling minke whales from acoustic recordings, resulting in over 30 independent localizations, a six-fold increase over those estimated during the survey. The two best estimates of abundance of calling minke whales were determined to be 80 and 91 animals (0.13 and 0.15 animals per 1,000 km2, respectively; CV = 34%). These are the first den- sity and abundance estimates for calling minke whales using towed hydrophone array surveys, and the first estimates for this species in the Mariana Islands region. These are considered minimum estimates of the true number of minke whales in the study area.</p>
10aBalaenoptera acutorostrata10adensity esti- mation10aMariana Islands10amarine mammals.10aminke whale10aPacific10apassive acoustics1 aNorris, Thomas, F.1 aDunleavy, Kerry, J.1 aYack, Tina, M.1 aFerguson, Elizabeth, L.  uhttp://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/mms.12397