Beam Reach

BC ocean noise workshop

I really enjoyed the opportunity to attend a workshop on Ocean Noise in Canada’s Pacific this week in Vancouver. Foremost it was a great opportunity to meet other bioacousticians and marine listeners who I otherwise only hear about electronically. Secondarily, it was a sobering glimpse into how much more noise is likely to come the the coast of British Columbia in the next decade. My thanks to the World Wildlife Fund for funding and organizing this timely effort.

Some of the folks I really enjoyed meeting for the first time were: Paul Spong and Helena Symonds of Orcalab; Ian McCallister, Diana Chan, and Jenny Brown who are initiating the Heiltsuk hydrophone network in Bella Bella; and Janie Wray of Cetacealab; Olga Filatova, specialist in Russian orca acoustics; Darrell Desjardin of the Port of Metro Vancouver; Michael Jasny of the NRDC; and Leila Hatch of NOAA and the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Discussing potential Pacific soniferous fish with Sarika Cullis-Suzuki and Francis Juanes was a treat. It was also great to catch up with: John Ford who is hearing both southern and northern resident killer whales on his NEPTUNE Canada hydrophones; Rob Williams of Oceans Initiative; Harold Yurk who showed some initial spectra of ships recorded off South Pender Island; Richard Dewey who foretold of improvements to the live VENUS Canada hydrophones; as well as Ross Chapman, John Hildebrand, Kathy Heise, and the ever-chivalrous Dom Tollit.

To get an idea of the listening effort that is going on in British Columbia, you can peruse this map of hydrophones deployed around the Northeast Pacific:

View Northeast Pacific hydrophone network in a larger map

Here is the short presentation I gave about the Salish Sea Hydrophone Network and some of our recent noise monitoring results: