Overview

• Published Sept. 9 in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, the study provides the first acoustic parameters for beaked whales in Brazil (DOI: 10.1121/10.0038973).
• Researchers using passive acoustic monitoring with hydrophones and autonomous recorders operating at 192–384 kHz collected nine audio recordings alongside four visual sightings starting in 2022.
• Analysis indicates at least three beaked whale species were present, based on the combined acoustic and visual records from the basin off northern Brazil.
• Beaked whales’ deep dives and tendency to stop vocalizing near the surface complicate species identification, underscoring the value of targeted high-frequency listening.
• The team plans to expand simultaneous visual and acoustic detections to reliably link signals to confirmed species and to guide conservation and management in the western South Atlantic.