Saving the whales by saving their habitat

by oceansadminHabitat, Human Impacts, Killer Whale Conservation, Ocean Noise, WhalesPosted on No Comments
3rd International Conference on Marine Mammal Protected Areas
3rd International Conference on Marine Mammal Protected Areas

It’s not rocket science. Much of the work we do involves conserving whale & dolphin populations by identifying the habitats most critical to their survival, and keeping the habitat quiet, and full of fish.

We’ve published extensively on the value of Marine Protected Areas to survival of endangered killer whale populations.  This week, we’re thrilled to participate in the 3rd International Conference on Marine Mammal Protected Areas in Adelaide.  Rob is chairing a workshop on extreme challenges in marine mammal conservation, when critical habitats occur in heavily industrialized coastlines.

This is a topic that consumes much of our time, because the killer whales we study live in habitats that have noisy shipping lanes running through them.  The dolphins and humpback whales generally live in quieter habitats in BC, but few laws exist to keep the habitat quiet, and proposed industrial activities have the potential to make quiet habitats noisy.

Thanks so much for your support for our charity.  We couldn’t do this work without your support.  If you like the work we do, please share our work through your social networks, or consider making a donation.

SHIPS PASS IN THE NIGHT

by oceansadminAcoustics, Human Impacts, Ocean NoisePosted on No Comments
cruise ship and killer whale
Killer whale surfing the wake of a cruise ship in Johnstone Strait

 

Killer whales depend on a quiet ocean to navigate, find food and choose mates.  Much of our work with acousticians at Cornell involves estimating how much acoustic habitat whales are losing from chronic, rising levels of noise.  Here’s a simple animation that describes that work.

In addition to masking the whales’ calls, animals can also show behavioural responses to ships.  Our new research, published in Marine Pollution Bulletin, shows that ships cause whales to change their swimming speed, breathing patterns and path direction.  In most parts of the whales’ range, whales rarely encounter big ships; but in the whales’ most important, critical habitats (Johnstone and Haro Straits), the whales may encounter a big ship every hour of every day.

This new research allows us to predict how often the whales change their behaviour to accommodate a ship.  Our next work will make some predictions about what it might cost the whales at a population level to spend less time feeding and more time avoiding ships.  Our ultimate aim is to partner with ship builders and operators to find ways to reduce those costs to whales.

A WEEK IN THE LIFE OF HARO STRAIT AND DOUGLAS CHANNEL

by oceansadminAcoustics, Habitat, Human Impacts, Ocean NoisePosted on No Comments

We recently published a paper reporting ocean noise levels in important whale habitats along the BC coast.  At the same time, we released an animation that outlined the key concepts.  Our research showed that the most important habitats for killer whales were the noisiest; important habitats for humpback whales were comparatively quiet.

We thought you might like to hear for yourself what those sites sound like.  Don’t worry.  We won’t make you listen to all 10,000 hours of recordings, but our co-authors (Dimitri Ponirakis and Chris Clark) at Cornell University’s Bioacoustics Research Program distilled some of the results into this nifty PowerPoint slide.  It’s a big file (22MB), but it lets you see and hear what Haro Strait and Douglas Channel sound like.

The neatest part of Dimitri’s work is that there was a windstorm partway through this period.  You can hear the wind on the recordings made off Kitimat (Douglas Channel), but the same wind noise cannot be heard in Haro Strait over the background noise from ships.  We still have a lot of work to do to understand what these noise levels might mean to whales and fish in terms of ecological effects, but we thought you might like to see and hear some of the recordings.  Please let us know what you think.

[slideonline id=5854]


Secret to a Sound Ocean

by oceansadminAcoustics, Habitat, Human Impacts, Ocean NoisePosted on No Comments

[vsw id=”77623625″ source=”vimeo” width=”425″ height=”344″ autoplay=”no”]

Sound is as important to whales as vision is to humans. Our scientific research (with Chris Clark and Dimitri Ponirakis at Cornell University’s Bioacoustics Research Program) is measuring how noisy or quiet important habitats are to fin, humpback and killer whales in British Columbia, Canada, and how we think that is affecting the whales’ ability to find food and each other. Joel Bellucci helped us turn our science into some nice 3D animations. Our big, cool friend, Douglas Coupland, narrates this gentle introduction to whales & ocean noise. We hope it gives you a overview of our work, and why underwater noise is worth worrying about.

To learn more about this topic, check out:
oceansinitiative.org/acoustics/

Or click here, to see the original, peer-reviewed, scientific research article in Animal Conservation.

Happy Spring!

by oceansadminAcoustics, Dolphins, Ocean NoisePosted on No Comments

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”
― Margaret Atwood, Bluebeard’s Egg

It’s officially spring!  Cherry blossoms are a sure sign that spring has sprung in the Pacific Northwest.  But for Pacific white-sided dolphins, spring means herring.  Each spring, Pacific herring find their way to inlets and coastal areas to spawn, laying tens of thousands of eggs.  This dramatic event attracts birds, sea lions, and dolphins.  We were lucky enough to capture footage of Pacific white-sided dolphins working together to corral herring.  Dolphins require a quiet ocean to both to find their prey and to avoid predators like killer whales.  Stay tuned for the results of our investigation to assess which areas along the BC coast are quietest for dolphins.  Hope you enjoy!