During the next phase of the Oceans Protection Plan, Fisheries and Oceans Canada is working with partners to test the performance of various technologies to detect the presence of endangered North Atlantic right whales and Southern Resident killer whales in near real-time.
Having up-to-date information on the presence of these whales reduces the risk of vessel strikes and entanglement in fishing gear. To date, two of these systems are currently being used to inform management measures for the North Atlantic right whale. These include:
- Underwater microphone systems mounted onto mobile gliders
- Underwater microphone systems mounted onto oceanographic buoys
Data collected from this initiative will be used to create regional North Atlantic right whale and Southern Resident killer whale detection and warning systems.