ORIGINAL PAPER Monitoring white whales (Delphinapterus leucas) with echolocation loggers Manuel Castellote • Ruth H. Leeney • Gregory O’Corry-Crowe • Rauno Lauhakangas • Kit M. Kovacs • William Lucey • Vera Krasnova • Christian Lydersen • Kathleen M. Stafford • Roman Belikov Received: 6 July 2012 / Revised: 12 November 2012 / Accepted: 28 November 2012 / Published online: 13 December 2012 Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012 Abstract Monitoring programmes for white whales (Delphinapterus leucas) have been called for repeatedly in recent years because this species is likely to be negatively impacted by climate change, but also because such a broadly dispersed, high trophic feeder can serve as an effective ecosystem sentinel. Arctic ecosystems are diffi- cult to monitor because of the extensive winter ice cover- age and extreme environmental conditions in addition to low human population densities. However, passive acoustic monitoring has proved to be a reliable method to remotely survey the presence of some marine mammals in the Arctic. In this study, we evaluate the potential use of echolocation loggers (T-POD and C-POD, Chelonia Ltd.) for remote monitoring of white whales. Captive experi- ments and open water surveys in three arctic/subarctic habitats (ice-noise-dominated environment, ice-free envi- ronment and low-turbidity waters) were used to document detection performance and to explore the use of logger angle and inter-click interval data to look at activity pat- terns and tidal influences on space use. When acoustic results were compared to concurrent visual observations, echolocation detection was only attributed to periods of white whale presence near the recorder deployment sites. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00300-012-1276-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. M. Castellote Parques Reunidos Valencia S. A. L’Oceanogra `fic, Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, Junta de murs i valls s/n, 46013 Valencia, Spain Present Address: M. Castellote (&) National Marine Mammal Laboratory, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA, 7600 Sand Point Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98115, USA e-mail: manuel.castellote@noaa.gov R. H. Leeney Centre for Ecology and Evolution, University of Exeter, Tremough Campus, Cornwall TR10 9EZ, UK Present Address: R. H. Leeney Benguela Research and Training, PO Box 786, Walvis Bay, Namibia G. O’Corry-Crowe Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, Florida Atlantic University, 5600 US, 1 North Fort Pierce, Boca Raton, FL 34946, USA R. Lauhakangas Helsinki Institute of Physics, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 6400014, Helsinki, Finland K. M. Kovacs Á C. Lydersen Norwegian Polar Institute, Fram Centre, 9296 Tromsø, Norway W. Lucey City and Borough of Yakutat, PO Box 160, Yakutat, AK 99689, USA V. Krasnova Á R. Belikov P. P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 36, Nahimovski Prospect, 117997 Moscow, Russia K. M. Stafford Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington, 1013 NE 40th Street, Box 355640, Seattle, WA 98105, USA 123 Polar Biol (2013) 36:493–509 DOI 10.1007/s00300-012-1276-2