1. Australian Antarctic Data Centre
2. Discover and Manage Data
3. Records
4. heliemps

Description

Creching emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) chickswere exposed to two overflights by an S-76 twin engine helicopter at 1000 m: a current operational guideline for helicopter activity in Antarctica. The flights were conducted on the same day but under different wind conditions: a morning flight with a 10 kt (18 km.hr-1) katabatic blowing perpendicular to the direction of helicopter travel and an afternoon flight with virtually no wind. Background noise levels recorded in the morning, before the helicopter flight, were significantly higher than in the afternoon, but these differences were not detectable when the helicopter was overhead. There were also no significant differences in the way chicks responded to helicopters between the morning and afternoon flight. All chicks became more vigilant when the helicopter approached and 69% either walked or ran, generally moving less than 10 m toward other chicks (i.e. not scattering). Most chicks (83%) displayed flipper-flapping, probably indicating nervous apprehension. This behaviour was seldom displayed in the absence of disturbance. Although all effects were relatively transitory, results support the introduction of more conservative guidelines for helicopter operations around breeding localities of this species.

The fields in this dataset are:

Time
Action
Date
Lying
Standing
Walking
Preening
Flapping

Quality

Dataset and analysis complete The behaviour of creche age emperor penguin chicks was recorded on video while birds were exposed to controlled helicopter over-flights. Video tapes were analysed using 'The Observer 3.0', an interactive behaviour analysis program. Records of sound level (dB) were also taken and later correlated to penguin behaviour and helicopter activity.

Access

The data are available for download from the provided URL. The data are in Observer format, but can be opened with any text editor (with a loss of functionality).

Two excel spreadsheets are also part of the dataset.

Temporal Coverages

• Start date: 1997-11-21 - Stop date: 1997-11-21

Spatial Coverages

Science Keywords

• EARTH SCIENCE > HUMAN DIMENSIONS > ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
• EARTH SCIENCE > BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION > ANIMALS/VERTEBRATES > BIRDS
• EARTH SCIENCE > BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION > ANIMALS/VERTEBRATES

Use Constraints

This data set conforms to the CCBY Attribution License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Please follow instructions listed in the citation reference provided at http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/metadata/citation.cfm?entry_id=heliemps when using these data.