This underwater observatory tracks endangered killer whales and measures noise impacts from commercial vessel traffic
/JASCO deploys an underwater listening station in the Salish Sea to protect endangered whales and quiet ships, commissioned by Transport Canada
VICTORIA, B.C.—Environmental science and engineering company JASCO Applied Sciences recently developed and installed a world-class underwater listening station in the Salish Sea to track endangered whales and measure underwater noise emissions of thousands of commercial vessels that frequent B.C.’s southern ports. The station consists of two observation frames, each with eight underwater microphones, called hydrophones, installed 190 metres (620 feet) below the shipping lanes of Boundary Pass, about 50 kilometres south of Vancouver.
Commissioned by Transport Canada under the federal government’s five-year Whales Initiative, this $9.5-million listening station project aims to support the protection and recovery of endangered Southern Resident killer whales and to provide data to accurately evaluate noise-reduction technologies applied to ships. JASCO is operating the system and working with the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority-led Enhancing Cetacean Habitat and Observation (ECHO) Program to analyze and distribute the results.
The Boundary Pass location was chosen because it is within critical habitat of the Southern Resident killer whales—a dwindled population of only 74 individuals at present—and is also a major thoroughfare for commercial vessel traffic. Positioned between the inbound and outbound shipping lanes, the observation frames use pyramid-shaped arrays of hydrophones to detect and triangulate the positions of calling marine mammals and ships transiting overhead. This ability allows counting of the individual calling animals within pods of whales passing the listening station.
JASCO’s OceanObserver intelligent monitoring systems are the brains of the listening station. The devices are designed for acquiring and processing large volumes of acoustic data in real time on devices such as ocean gliders, buoys, and cabled observatories like the listening station. The OceanObservers are connected by 2.8 kilometres of subsea fibre-optic cables to a shore station on Saturna Island, transmitting over 1 terabyte of data to shore each day. The sound recordings, together with underwater video and oceanographic sensor data, are reported online in real time.
Tracking endangered Southern Resident killer whales
The whale detection results include the species, locations, and travelling directions of the animals. These will help reveal the distribution and activity of animals in this area, including Southern Resident killer whales. In the future it is hoped these results will feed alert systems to notify approaching vessels when animals are present and in their path.
Between temporary recorders deployed since December 2018 and the cabled listening station that replaced them in June 2020, and with the support and participation of the BC Coast Pilots, the shipping industry and regional commercial vessel operators, the project has already obtained high-quality measurements of underwater noise emissions of over 10,000 ships.
David Hannay, JASCO’s chief science officer, says this system has produced the largest ship noise database in the world and it continues to grow by 10 to 15 new measurements each day. These data are extremely important, he says, for understanding underwater noise emissions and supporting the development of “quiet ship” limits—a process involving international ship certification societies and spearheaded by the ECHO Program and Transport Canada. The goal is to reduce ship noise globally, benefitting Southern Resident killer whales and all species of the world’s oceans.
JASCO is also working with the ECHO Program to use the vessel noise signatures to investigate the relationships between vessel noise emissions and operational and design parameters, to support the building of quieter ships and encourage quieter vessel transits in the region. This long-term monitoring project will also document trends in underwater noise over many years, providing valuable feedback to Transport Canada on the effectiveness of measures aimed at reducing shipping noise in Southern Resident killer whale critical habitat.
Continuing to partner with Transport Canada and the ECHO Program, JASCO will operate the station and continue to deliver results until at least March 2023.
For more information, see the Media Kit below, the project website at https://www.jasco.com/boundary-pass-uls and our homepage at https://www.jasco.com/.
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Quotes
“While Canada’s coasts and marine species are more protected than ever before, the Government of Canada remains committed to preserving and protecting our vulnerable marine environment. This underwater listening station in Boundary Pass is just one example of our international leadership in quiet vessel research and commitment to reducing the threat of underwater noise.”
“The Boundary Pass Listening Station is critical for understanding the noise emissions of the world’s commercial vessel fleet and its impact on the environment. By helping to define noise thresholds for international quiet ship certifications, these measurements will lead to noise savings for all the world’s oceans—an essential goal for ensuring the health and survival of at-risk species, including our Southern Resident killer whales.”
“This major engineering project, led by JASCO Applied Sciences, leveraged the capabilities of Canadians from Nova Scotia to British Columbia. JASCO ensured the Government of Canada’s investment remained in Canada, benefiting as many Canadian ocean technology companies and their Canadian suppliers as possible. The underlying technology that enables the ULS is truly world leading and is the result of many years of R&D by Canadian industry.”
“Southern Resident Killer Whales rely mainly on sound to communicate and forage. This Underwater Listening Station provides a record of the acoustic environment within SRKW critical habitat and is an important component of monitoring and enabling the recovery of this species. The Station allows for real-time acoustic tracking of these animals, a feature that hopefully will be used to alert approaching vessels so they can increase watchkeeping and possibly modify navigation to avoid these animals and reduce noise exposures when they are present.”
Images and Video
Full-resolution versions of the images and video below are available at:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ABqT3Aqix7BjGnqq7
Footage of the ROV underwater video feed in the control room.
Backgrounder
Project Overview
Launch and funding: The Boundary Pass Underwater Listening Station project was commissioned by Transport Canada in 2018 as an ecological tool to support efforts to reduce the effects of commercial shipping noise on cetaceans in B.C.’s coastal waters. It was funded under the federal government’s Whales Initiative. This $9.5-million infrastructure project was contracted through a competitive process to JASCO Applied Sciences, a Canadian company and world leader in underwater acoustics science and marine sound measurement systems. Transport Canada and the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority provide ongoing funding for data analyses.
Continuous monitoring since 2018: Underwater monitoring of sound in Boundary Pass began at the project’s onset in December 2018 and will continue at least through March 2023. Underwater sound was successfully monitored for 18 months with JASCO’s autonomous battery powered acoustic recorders. A major milestone was reached in June 2020, with the commissioning of two cabled hydrophone arrays (underwater microphones) that permit real-time acoustic monitoring as well as the collection of other important oceanographic data. Both arrays are monitored by JASCO OceanObserverTM intelligent acoustic monitoring systems, which transmit raw data and pre-processed results to shore to be provided online.
Cabled data transmission: The listening station is deployed south of Saturna Island in Boundary Pass, B.C., in 190 metres (620 feet) of water. It is located 2.5 kilometers offshore, between the inbound and outbound shipping lanes leading to Vancouver ports. As well as supporting high-resolution acoustic monitoring, the station makes other oceanographic measurements including ocean current speed, and water temperature and salinity. Over 1 terabyte of data is transmitted to shore every day. These data are important for characterizing and understanding the critical habitat of endangered southern resident killer whales and important habitat for many other marine animals.
Localization and alerts: The use of two synchronized hydrophone arrays allows the system to locate and track calling animals. This ability facilitates counting individual whales within pods that pass the station – something that few other hydrophone systems can do. The ability to accurately locate calling whales is especially important for providing warnings to approaching vessels when whales are close to or directly inside the shipping lanes, something the project partners are investigating for the future. Warnings could allow vessels to increase watchkeeping and perhaps safely navigate to avoid close approaches with animals when they are nearby.[WM1]
Accurate measurements: The listening station uses precisely calibrated hydrophones and performs internal self calibrations every day. This high level of precision is necessary for accurately measuring noise emission levels of ships – one of the key design goals of the listening station. The station measures the noise emission of almost every commercial vessel that sails through Boundary Pass. To date, the Boundary Pass Listening Station has measured over 10,000 vessels – already producing the world’s largest database of systematic measurements of this type and growing at 10 to 15 new measurements every day.
Ambient soundscape: The Listening Station, with highly calibrated hydrophones, is also able to characterize the ambient noise soundscape of Boundary Pass and it will track changes in underwater noise levels over many years. This ability to track noise over long time periods will allow the government and the ECHO Program to gauge the effectiveness of noise reduction strategies and measures.
A JASCO led project: JASCO has led the Boundary Pass Underwater Listening Station project from design through operational commissioning. We are very pleased to report an amazing success: the system has and continues to produce very high quality acoustic and oceanographic measurements since the project onset. Thousands of Southern Resident killer whale call detections and other cetacean and fish sound detections have been made. More than 10,000 commercial vessel noise emission measurements have been captured by the station and this number is growing daily. The Underwater Listening station has continuously measured and tracked underwater noise levels since December 2018 and this information has been documented in quarterly reports. Importantly, we have largely used local Canadian companies to supply virtually all services for this project. Those services have included power system equipment, cable engineering, bathymetric surveys, cable laying and equipment deployment (including ROV and diver support), and independent environmental assessments for permitting.
About the Equipment
The Boundary Pass Underwater Listening Station is a cabled monitoring system consisting of two OceanObserverTM hydrophone arrays, each with 4 primary hydrophones. They are deployed 300 m apart on the seabed between the shipping lanes that lie 2.5 kilometres from shore, in 190 metres water depth. The measurement data are transmitted from the OceanObservers along 2.8 kilometres of quadruple-armoured fiber-optic and electrical cable to a shore station on Saturna Island.
Each observatory includes four primary hydrophones and four backup hydrophones, all of which can operate simultaneously if needed. The hydrophones are arranged in a pyramid-shaped tetrahedron so that the direction of the sound sources, such as vessels and marine mammals, can be determined. By having two observatories operating simultaneously, the station can triangulate these directions to fully localize and track sound sources in 3 dimensions.
The electro-optic multiplexer, data telemetry, power control and network switching system (EMO Mini-T Multiplexer) was provided by MacArtney Canada Ltd., who worked closely with JASCO to develop a combined software/hardware solution for controlling the wide variety of equipment installed on the subsea frames of the listening station.
At the shore station, the data are fed in real-time to JASCO’s automated data processing framework PortListen®, which makes all results immediately available through PortListen’s online data portal. Users can view and listen to each individual call detection through the application’s web interface. Ship noise measurements and related metadata are also fully accessible through the interface in several formats. Ambient noise graphs and statistics are available in daily, weekly, and monthly formats, directly through the same interface.
In addition to the acoustic sensors, both observatories have streaming video cameras and oceanographic sensors to document water temperature, salinity, sound speed, and current profiles to enable a wide variety of scientific research. The video system has already captured a wide range of animals, including several fish species, crustaceans, other benthic animals, and a giant pacific octopus that occasionally visits the station.
About the Installation
The Underwater Listening Stations, sensors, and associated telemetry systems were designed and manufactured by JASCO Applied Sciences engineering team in Halifax, NS, and then shipped to Burnaby for final assembly, integration with the cables, and deployment.
ITB Subsea Ltd. laid the undersea cables and deployed the two acoustic observatories using their cable lay vessel ITB-45. A work-class ROV (remotely operated vehicle) was used for cable manipulation in shallow water and to monitor the touchdown of the observatories in the deeper waters. The cables were laid over the gravel and sand of the Boundary Pass seafloor under thousands of pounds of tension, delicately weaved between boulders and other obstacles.
Divers from CanPac Marine Services performed shore-end cable installation services including installation of special protections to avoid cable damage from the high currents and rugged rocky shoreline of the Saturna Island landing site.
Hemmera provided environmental assessment and permitting services for the full project and independent environmental monitoring during the construction phases.
Terra Remote Surveys Inc. performed comprehensive route surveys using a variety of side-scan and multibeam sonar technologies to choose the optimal route from shore to the listening station site, approximately 2.5 km offshore in Boundary Pass.
About JASCO Applied Sciences
JASCO Applied Sciences is a world leader in the science of underwater sound and its effects on marine life. JASCO is Canadian company, founded in Victoria in 1981, with subsidiaries in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia. We provide support for all stages of environmental reviews and assessments of underwater sound for the renewable energy, oil and gas, marine construction, shipping, and defence sectors. We design, develop, and manufacture state-of-the-art oceanographic data acquisition systems to meet project demands for quality, endurance, reliability, and performance. We enable our clients to satisfy regulatory requirements by providing scientifically defensible assessments of their projects to government regulators and the public. For more information, visit www.jasco.com.
Learn More
Read more about the Boundary Pass ULS project
Learn more about JASCO Applied Sciences
Check out previous JASCO news coverage
Contact Us
David Hannay
Chief Science Officer
JASCO Applied Sciences, Victoria, BC
T. +1.250.483.3300 x2002 C. +1.250.514.6016
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