Yukusam is the male sperm whale named after an island to the northeast of Vancouver Island where he was first sighted in February. Now he has moved south and was spotted in the San Juan Islands on March 31st, the first ever sighting of this animal in Washington Inland waters! Generally a deep ocean species, the [...]
On Monday morning 4 September, we got word that the Southern Resident killer whales were inbound from the Pacific Ocean. It had been over a month since members of this endangered killer whale population had been seen in the Salish Sea. […]
This summer a voluntary commercial vessel slowdown trial is planned to take place in the core summer habitat of Southern Resident killer whales. SMRU Consulting North America have played a significant role in the development and implementation of this exciting noise mitigation focused trial which is being led by Vancouver Fraser Port Authority’s ECHO Program. [...]
In January the Annex IV expert forum met to discuss the challenges associated with the environmental monitoring around tidal turbines. The video can be viewed below. […]
Last week was Ocean Noise Week at NOAA. NOAA and the US Office of National Marine Sanctuaries have listed ocean noise as a national issue -an issue that affects the numerous marine sanctuaries in US waters. […]
This week we saw some really uplifting news in the whale world. The US government announced that they were removing almost all of the world’s humpback whale populations from the endangered species list. To be precise NOAA Fisheries stated in a press release on September 6th that humpback whales in 9 of 14 newly identified distinct populations [...]
We are thrilled to launch the first of our live passive acoustic monitoring systems, the upgraded Lime Kiln Hydrophone Station is now live streaming around the world! […]
This month we were really excited to see the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) release their draft Ocean Noise Strategy Roadmap for public comment. This is the first coordinated initiative by the US regulator to address issues of man-made noise in the oceans. And, SMRU Consulting is already collaborating on this novel effort [...]
We are proud to announce the publication of a new book entitled: Listening in the Ocean by Whitlow Au and Marc Lammers- in which our own Dr Ursula Verfuss co-authored the chapter: Listening to Echolocation Clicks with PODs. […]
SMRU Consulting scientist Jason Wood had a paper published this week on shipping noise, which at close range has high frequency components that could have the potential to mask endangered Southern Resident killer whale calls or echolocation clicks. […]
Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) can be a great tool to monitor marine mammal presence over wide areas and long time periods. However, there can be large costs associated with retrieving and replacing the recorders – for example, those deployed offshore or in dynamic environments may require significant time, specialist vessels and personnel in order to retrieve and [...]
A really cool new study has found that right whales may have “distinctive voices” in their upcalls. This could be functionally similar to the way dolphins have signature whistles. […]
