Bill Watkins and pinniped bioacoustics

Bill’s work on pinnipeds began with a 1963 paper by Schevill, Watkins, and myself in Science on the underwater sounds of pinnipeds, which resulted from his recordings in the highly unnatural waters of the New York Aquarium. It was written partly in reaction to assumptions being made that seals, like cetaceans, possessed sonar. Following that mode, there followed a paper by the same team in the same location on the remarkable bell tones and knockings of captive walruses. Recording from natural situations, with Schevill in McMurdo Sound, Southern Ocean, resulted in the first analysis of Weddell seal sounds. In 1969, he provided the first technical description of a marine mammal song (in the behavioral meaning of that term), that of the bearded seal, and in 1975 a detailed description of walrus sounds in association with their reproductive behavior. Sounds of other polar pinnipeds, ribbon seals of the Arctic and Ross seals of the Southern Ocean, bring the history up to date. Pinnipeds possess a suite of underwater sounds that rivals any other group. They make up for apparent lack of echo-location ability by musical quality of voice.