SIMRES Acoustic Data Hydroacoustic Measurements: Marine Mammal Detections from February to December 2020 off Monarch Head and East Point, Saturna Island, BC

Transport Canada (TC) commissioned JASCO Applied Sciences (JASCO) to analyze underwater sound recordings obtained from the Saturna Island Marine Research and Education Society (SIMRES) at two locations in Boundary Pass, BC. JASCO’s automated marine mammal detectors, which are recognition algorithms, for killer whales, humpback whales, and Pacific white-sided dolphins were applied to the data. From 21 Feb to 31 Dec 2020, almost 3000 killer whale vocalizations were validated at Monarch Head on 36 days and almost 4000 at East Point on 42 days. These results suggest that killer whale occurrence has increased in the area when compared to the 2018-2019 data sets. Lower detection counts were observed for humpback whales at both stations, and they were primarily detected during late fall and early winter, which is consistent with previous data sets. There were no validated detections of Pacific white-sided dolphins during the recording period at either station. Overall, this study contributes important information on the occurrence of several species in the Boundary Pass for ongoing research required to investigate factors driving the distributions of marine mammals, specifically southern resident killer whales (SRKW).

 

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