Over 100 people came to the Quadra Community Centre on December 7, to learn about the acoustic dialects and social connections of Orca, Humpback and Fin Whales. Sierra Quadra invited Janie Wray – CEO and co-founder of the North Coast Cetacean Society, BC Whales, and the manager of the BC Hydrophone Network – to share from her more than two decades of research.
Continue reading Janie Wray: Listening to Whales
Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Autumn is the season of whale song on the Pacific Northwest Coast, says longtime researcher Janie Wray.
Male humpbacks off the B.C. coast are beginning to get vocal — practising and modifying a supernatural and intricate song that is transmitted and almost simultaneously adopted among themselves before and during their winter migration to warmer climes.
Continue reading It’s a new season of whale song on the West Coast
By Mina Kerr-Lazenby, North Shore News, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Marine researchers are diving into the world of artificial intelligence to help solve an invisible problem: noise pollution, and the effect it has on local marine life.
Non-profit organization Clear Seas is researching how machine learning can help reduce the noise emitted from ships, with the goal of creating an underwater vessel that will tune and adjust its noise to adapt to whatever marine mammal, especially in regards to whales, is nearby.
Continue reading Ships to use AI to protect whales from underwater noise pollution
Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
New technology is allowing researchers to covertly monitor, record and identify the sounds fish make underwater to try to unravel their deepest secrets.
Researcher Xavier Mouy, a recent PhD graduate at the University of Victoria, and his colleagues have devised a relatively low-cost portable audio-visual system that surreptitiously records the surprising range of acoustics fish produce, but more importantly, pinpoints what creature makes which sound.
Continue reading Scientists eavesdropping on fish to fathom their underwater secretsNational Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Fish have plenty to say and we need to make more of an effort to listen to them and understand what they’re talking about, researchers say.
The hums, grunts, squeals and even farts made by soniferous, or noise-making, fish are a noteworthy part of the ocean soundscape, said marine ecologist Kieran Cox.
The former University of Victoria researcher was part of an international team that combed through more than 800 studies to catalogue vocal species and created a publicly accessible global library called FishSounds.
Continue reading Hums, growls and farts: Fish sound the alert
