Photograph from the Patagonia Projects website catalogue; photographer to be confirmed.
Historical work · acoustic research
Listening to sei whales
Two Saoirse expeditions recorded sei whale sounds in the gulfs of Penas and Tres Montes. The paper published in 2019 describes these calls and acknowledges the organization of funding and vessel operations.
The question
Which sei whale calls could be recorded in this little-studied area?
To describe sei whale calls in the southeastern Pacific and provide a basis for understanding their presence in Chilean Patagonia.
- Place
- Gulfs of Penas and Tres Montes, southeastern Pacific coast, Chile.
- Fieldwork
- May 2016 and May 2017
- Publication or dossier
- 31 January 2019
- Scope
- This page summarizes a published historical study. It does not claim that the work continues today or present the recordings as a direct measure of the species’ recovery.
At sea and in the record
How the work was done
- Two cruises aboard the sailing vessel Saoirse included biological, oceanographic and acoustic surveys.
- The team used hydrophones to record sounds opportunistically while observing marine mammals from the vessel.
- The paper analyses downsweep calls and compares them with recordings from other regions.
Contribution and evidence
What the evidence supports
Patagonia Projects’ contribution. Keri-Lee Pashuk and Greg Landreth of Patagonia Projects organized funding and Saoirse operations for expeditions HF29 and HF32.
Scientific authorship. Sonia Español-Jiménez, Paulina A. Bahamonde, Gustavo Chiang and Verena Häussermann.
Documented result. In 363 hours of underwater recordings, 41 calls attributed to sei whales were identified. The paper presents the first characterization of these calls in the southeastern Pacific. The hours and calls refer to the entire study, conducted during the 2016 and 2017 expeditions.
Limits of this record. The paper notes that the recordings were opportunistic and cannot establish the source of each call without acoustic tags attached to the whales.
Source material
Sources consulted
- Ocean Science paper, 2019
Methods, scientific authorship, results and acknowledgement of Patagonia Projects’ support.
A conversation to begin