FRIDAY MORNING, 6 DECEMBER 2013 UNION SQUARE 23/24, 9:00 A.M. TO 10:45 A.M. Session 5aAB Animal Bioacoustics: Animal Hearing and Vocalization Michael A. Stocker, Chair Ocean Conservation Research, P.O. Box 559, Lagunitas, CA 94938 Contributed Papers 9:00 9:30 5aAB1. A comparison of acoustic and visual metrics of sperm whale 5aAB3. Psychophysical studies of hearing in sea otters (Enhydra lutris). longline depredation. Aaron Thode (SIO, UCSD, 9500 Gilman Dr., MC Asila Ghoul and Colleen Reichmuth (Inst. of Marine Sci., Long Marine 0238, La Jolla, CA 92093-0238,
[email protected]), Lauren Wild (Sitka Lab., Univ. of California Santa Cruz, 100 Shaffer Rd., Santa Cruz, CA Sound Sci. Ctr., Sitka, AK), Delphine Mathias (GIPSA Lab., Grenoble INP, 95060,
[email protected]) St. Martin d’He`res, France), Janice Straley (Univ. of Alaska Southeast, The sensory biology of sea otters is of special interest, given their am- Sitka, AK), and Chris Lunsford (Auke Bay Labs., NOAA, Juneau, AK) phibious nature and their recent evolutionary transition from land to sea. Annual federal stock assessment surveys for Alaskan sablefish also However, little is known about the acoustic sense of sea otters, including attempt to measure sperm whale depredation by quantifying visual evidence sensitivity to airborne and underwater sound. In this study, we sought to of depredation, including lip remains and damaged fish. An alternate passive obtain direct measures of auditory function. We trained an adult-male south- acoustic method for quantifying depredation was investigated during the ern sea otter to participate in audiometric testing in an acoustic chamber and 2011 and 2012 survey hauls.