Howe Sound Hydrophone

Howe Sound Revival is a newly founded non-profit organization based in the Howe Sound (Átl'ka7tsem) UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Our goal is to document and share the revival of marine life through underwater acoustics to conserve and protect the recovery of whales in the Howe Sound. We aim to 1) create a space for the land-based community to connect with the Howe Sound and listen to marine mammal vocalizations in real-time, 2) create an acoustic baseline for marine mammal presence to research monthly and yearly trends to monitor habitat health, and 3) provide the opportunity for the community to volunteer and get involved with marine acoustics. You can learn more on our website: www.howesoundrevival.com

We are still in the infancy and fundraising stage of this project. Current efforts are focused on networking, community outreach, and proposing a hydrophone location. Once we have secured the funds, the first objective is to source and build the acoustic equipment needed for the hydrophone node to be deployed. The second objective is to work with our team of deployment volunteers to deploy the acoustic equipment. The third objective is to set-up the data management, processing, storage, and live-stream in which the land-based community can listen in. This includes onboarding to the BC Hydrophone Network (BCHN) and Whale Sound. The fourth objective is to maintain the hydrophone and create an open source data storage system to provide this acoustic data to graduate students as well as researchers in which a baseline for acoustic presence in the Howe Sound can be presented and monitored in the future.

Future goals for this project include deploying additional hydrophones to create an acoustic network to alert ship traffic of marine mammal presence in the Howe Sound. Whales have returned to the Howe Sound and it is crucial to monitor that it remains a safe and quiet habitat in the future.