Whale research initiative measuring ocean sounds off Vancouver southwest coast

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — Whale research in B.C. just got a huge bump with a new underwater listening station off the southwest coast of Vancouver.

David Hanny, Chief Science Officer at JASCO Applied Sciences, says the station tracks endangered killer whales and measures noise emissions of thousands of commercial vessels that frequent B.C.’s southern ports.

“If we don’t reduce the noise in the ocean, we are limiting their ability to use sound as effectively, so we’re real important goal of this system is to find ways to make ships quieter and, and thereby reducing the noise levels in the ocean,” he tells NEWS 1130.

There will be two stations with eight microphones underwater below the shipping lanes of Boundary Pass, about 50 kilometres south of Vancouver.

“The system can detect the animals, 24 hours a day, and seven days a week. So we now know when they are present and when they’re travelling past the station. Also, the system lets us count the number of calling animals,” Hanny adds.

In a release, JASO explains the Boundary Pass area was chosen “because it is within critical habitat of the Southern Resident killer whales-a dwindled population of only 74 individuals at present-and is also a major thoroughfare for commercial vessel traffic.”

“Positioned between the inbound and outbound shipping lanes, the observation frames use pyramid-shaped arrays of hydrophones to detect and triangulate the positions of calling marine mammals and ships transiting overhead. This ability allows counting of the individual calling animals within pods of whales passing the listening station,” the release adds.

Hanny says southern resident killer whales use sound for foraging and require quiet oceans to be successful.

JASO hopes the listening station will remain in place until at least March 2023.