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Protecting Killer Whales from Marine Traffic

911勛圖 researchers are developing a model that uses real-time acoustic data to protect 76 Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKWs) at risk from collisions with marine vessels in shipping lanes in the Salish Sea. 

, an 911勛圖 statistician who specializes in quantitative marine-mammal science, and colleague Dave Campbell have received funding from the Government of Canada���s Ocean Protection Plan to develop a practical tool that that will alert mariners when the SRKWs direction of travel is going to overlap with their ship���s path.

The SRKWs have protective status under Canada���s Species at Risk Act.

Using underwater hydrophone nodes and acoustic bouys, Joy���s team will collect data that will monitor the whales��� presence.

���This acoustic data, combined with visual sightings from reliable sources, will provide real-time SRKW location data to inform the probabilistic model of marine animal movement,��� Joy says. ���When the SRKW location data becomes available from any of the real-time sources, we can use our model to predict where next the animals are likely to go.���

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