Technical Approach

Before the effect of human activity on marine mammal’s ears can be evaluated, it is important to determine three things: the status of hearing in wild populations, what natural hearing changes can be expected in any given marine mammal as it ages, and what hearing pathologies commonly affect these animals. Otopathological analyses of marine mammals ears will be performed in order to ascertain their conditions. Using the otopathological analyses of baleen whale’s ears, a biomimetic model of auditory responsiveness to DoD sound types will be created. This model will simulate a baleen whale audiogram, and thereby, determine hearing responses to various well-defined military sound types across the bandwidth of whale vocalizations and the potential masking of whale communication calls. Statistical sampling models and acoustical classification algorithms using the data collected will be developed. The U.S. Navy’s Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS) for the mapping of the distribution of whales in the Southern California region will be activated.