90-day Monitoring Report - National Marine Fisheries Service - NOAA

5.1.1.4. Unidentified cetacean
A total of five unidentified cetaceans were observed on four separate occasions. The first three
sightings occurred in transit to the survey site and the fourth sighting during transit back to
Dutch Harbor. The airgun arrays were on board during these sightings thus the animals were
not exposed to the sound source.
5.1.2. Pinniped Detections
Out of the 42 detections, pinnipeds consisted of 35 of the detections. There was also an
unidentified animal with significant decay that was suspected to be a dead pinniped. The
pinniped detections consisted of 6 Pacific walrus, 3 spotted seals, 5 ringed seals, 6 bearded
seals, 4 northern fur seals and 11 unidentifiable pinnipeds. The spatial distribution of cetacean
detections can be seen in Figure 14.
Figure 14. Pinniped spatial distribution of detections during the Coakley two-dimensional (2D)
marine geophysical survey.
5.1.2.1. Northern fur seal
Northern fur seals (Callorhinus ursinus) were positivity identified on four occasions; with a total
of 9 individuals observed. All of these detections occurred the first week of the cruise, during the
transit to the survey area. Therefore all northern fur seals were seen when all seismic
equipment was on board and no sound source active. The seals were noted to be in depths
ranging from 68 to 576 meters, and noted as close as 150 to as far 250 meters distance from
the vessel.
5.1.2.2. Spotted seal
Three detections of spotted seals (Phoca largha) occurred during this project, all on 13
UME04085
R.V Marcus G. Langseth
L-DEO/NMFS
05 January 2012
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