Author: Matthew Taub / Source: Atlas Obscura
Somewhere in the Haro Strait, where Washington State trickles into British Columbia, a whale poops. That waste is a scientific goldmine, but not if scientists don’t know it’s there. But if you listen close, you might be able to help them find it.
An internet app called OrcaSound allows citizen scientists to livestream the ocean sounds of the Pacific Northwest from anywhere in the world, to help gather data about the resident killer whales and their environs. Scott Veirs, the project’s lead researcher, said that hydrophones (underwater microphones) have been in place off Washington’s San Juan Island since the mid-2000s, capturing the submarine goings-on and bringing them to listeners in a rudimentary form. The app relaunched recently, and now offers real-time streaming, as well as sounds from an all-new hydrophone station off Whidbey Island, just to the southeast of the the older ones.
Veirs developed OrcaSound because he saw an opportunity for engaged citizens to help fill gaps in the study of orcas. The whales have long been well-observed in the summertime, when the weather cooperates and the cetaceans are more accessible to scientists and the Coast Guard, who observe them by boat. But questions have lingered about their lives during other times of the year. Now, in any season, listeners can notify scientific authorities to alert…
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