Celebrating Our New Partnership with BC Whales
Check out this great conversation between Janie Wray, the CEO and lead researcher for BC Whales, and David Dick, the Southern Resident Killer Whale Senior Manager of the QENTOL, YEN / W̱SÁNEĆ Marine Guardians Program. In this conversation, they discuss their new partnership and the forthcoming set-up of hydrophones to listen to whales.
Transcription
David: It's a really important area.
Janie: Oh my gosh, I have to reach out to this person.
David: And I said, Well, I'm looking down the road. I'm looking for that competitive advantage to say, look, Government Canada, you're not doing your work properly.
Janie: It's exciting.
Who are our guests?
My name is Janie Ray I'm the CEO of BC Whales. I've been studying the behavior and the acoustic tradition of whales, specifically Orca, and humpbacks, for over 23 years. I'm very dedicated to protecting whales and doing it along the entire coast of BC, working with wonderful people like David.
David: Hello, my name is David Dick. I'm the Southern Resident Killer Whale Senior Manager for our QENTOL, YEN / W̱SÁNEĆ Marine Guardians Program.
Tell us about this exciting new partnership.
It's been over a year in the making for Janie and I. Janie reached out to me when I was just in the beginning stages of my program and shared a little bit about her interests in what BC Whales was doing and wanting to connect with other First Nations groups that have the same interest in looking after our relatives of the deep. Our relationship began with starting discussions on what can we do together to start building our programs with each other. It's been quite the roller coaster ride. We had one island in mind, and then we were getting going with it. And then after that, things didn't work out. We had to switch clients to a different island.
Janie: There's been challenges in there. I don't know about David, but I know every time I get off a call after speaking with David, I feel that much more inspired. Sometimes people do that, you have a connection, and you just, it inspires you. And one of the projects that we've talked about a lot is installing a hydrophone. And that hydrophone would enable the W̱SÁNEĆ and David's team to listen to whales on a 24/7 basis. And as well looking at noise in the territories, also looking at whale habitat use and the goal would be to actually transmit the signal from the underwater world, potentially I would hope to David's office, and so you'd have a live feed so you can listen to whales, the community can listen to whales but also to be able to do the metrics and the analysis right in the office. That's what we started talking about when we first met. I had read an article about David and I just went, Oh my gosh, I have to reach out to this person. So hopefully by this fall.
What do you hope to accomplish by this fall?
Janie: Our goal is on Rum Island, which is in parks, so that's why we have a little bit of a delay. Now the goal is to have that hydrophone installed, I would hope by September. I would really hope that we have the hydrophone installed by September. Right now it's just the one hydrophone. If David wants to install other hydrophones, we would certainly help in any way that we can. Starting with one, maybe going to 1,2,3.
David and I have just briefly talked about the idea of localizing, which means, if you have three hydrophones that can see each other and can communicate with each other even though they may be five kilometers apart, when a whale vocalizes, you can pinpoint the exact location of the whale. And you know how you go into the forest and you can see deer trails or our own trails, you would actually see these little whale trails come up on this computer screen if they're vocalizing while they're traveling, so it's a great way to document actual habitat use of whales.
What impact could this work have and what are the potential outcomes of this data?
Janie: You have the ability to make change happen. You can go to industry or whoever and say, you know what we've been documenting the habitat use and noise metrics in this particular location. And when you have those results, you may have the ability to publish some of those results with outreach materials, also with peer-reviewed literature, or giving that data to somebody that's doing a masters or a PhD or a student or anybody that wants to take that data, do the research. And now when you go to talk about protecting habitat for whales, or salmon, or whatever the creature happens to be in the ocean, you have something to stand on, really share what those results are saying
David: For me, it's about looking after our relatives of the deep for our KELŁOLEMEĆEN and the other whale species that transit through this area. Work that's happening over in Vancouver, they're building an extension of the Port of Vancouver and the trans mountain pipeline with the bigger ships coming through. It's really important to gather this data so we can do our part in letting the government know this expansion is really starting to hurt their whales and more work needs to be done. They have voluntary slowdown periods and I want to make it mandatory. This is just one of many tools that our QENTOL, YEN program is jumping on board with organizations like Janie, and for me, I see Janie working with me to build my foundation for our QENTOL, YEN program. I want to do the same as her. I want to have our own whale station.
I brought this up with Parks Canada. Oh, look, this would be great spot to put a shed here, so we can have students do work here. And they're like, whoa, David, we're talking about hydrophones here. And I said, Well, I'm looking down the road. I said, I'm always taking that one step. What's the bigger picture here? I want to give our W̱SÁNEĆ Youth and Students that are in the schools, the same opportunity that Janie's providing for students during their master's thesis to get school credits. So when we have our hydrophone set up on Rum Island, also known as Isle-de-Lis, in Parks Canada, we can bring students out there to do the same kind of work that Janie is doing up north.
Note: Janie’s work involves monitoring and studying the movement patterns, behavior, and vocalizations of whales along the BC coast to gather critical data for their conservation and advocate for their protection.
David: So I want to give that opportunity for our youth in schools to start building their future
Janie: That ability to do land-based observations and for students to be a part of that, high school students coming out for a day and having the ability to see how data is collected. David, you have such a better way of describing it. That's why it's so nice to have the combination because I do like the way you say it. But it really is a huge opportunity for students to be in the field and to see whales from land and to watch and listen. It's incredible. It's enlightening. I really do believe that, yeah.
Is this the cutting edge of available technology? Why is this data so important?
David: It's not something that a lot of us are really aware of. And so this is an, I guess you could say it's a new teaching that's been passed down from one area to another, when for me, as many of you who follow me, the work that we're doing, I'm looking for that competitive advantage to say, look, Government Canada, you're not doing your work properly. This is what we're doing here in our QENTOL, YEN program, where we have these hydrophones set up. We have these areas that we're going out and doing transit. We're marking things out that's tapping within our traditional territories. And so for me, yes, it's something new, but no, it's something old. And so when we get ourself established, and then other nations say, David, we noticed what you're doing and we want to know more, great, you gotta go see this wonderful person, go see Janie, talk to her. And so this is something that I've been sharing with Janie and I said, Hey Janie, you might want to reach out to this nation. So I'm hoping that with all our hydrophones coming together, us First Nations down here in the South will be interconnected so we can all work together for the betterment of our KELŁOLEMEĆEN.
Janie: Yeah, I mean, that's, that's the real goal. And at the bottom of everything, it's working together that's going to accomplish anything when it comes to protecting land or waters for all creatures on this planet but we do have to work together. One of the things that we've been creating is this idea of a network of hydrophone operators working together. Even though the data and everything is yours, you're sharing information, right? You're talking about it, you're talking about your results.
One of the things that we've talked about is this website where, let's say, you have a hydrophone in the water, right? Anybody within your community could go on to that website, just click that hydrophone, just a little dot on a map and what's going to come up on a daily basis is how many whale calls you had, what were the noise levels that particular day when those whales were in the area, or clicking another button, and actually listening to what that hydrophone sounds like, listening to what whales sound like but also listening to what boat traffic sounds like, because then you're going to get a sense of the environment that whales are living in these days when it comes to boat noise and it is an awakening for people.
When you listen to a hydrophone, it changes your whole awareness. That hydrophone is bringing you into the underwater world of whales, and they're so dependent on sound. They use sound like we use our eyes. That's how they communicate with each other, how family bonds are developed. It's how they find their food. So sound is everything. They need to listen, they need to hear in order to survive. It's really important work. David's just been amazing in introducing us to other First Nations in the Salish Sea area. Maybe we'll end up with a whole network of hydrophones. Wouldn't that be phenomenal?
What would you tell someone who had never heard of this program?
Janie: Understanding that whales need to listen in order to survive. It's also really important that we're listening to each other and we can learn that from whales. And I think it was David, I'm sure it was David that said this to me, during one call. He referred to whales as the knowledge keepers of the ocean. That is so true. So when we put this hydrophone in the water, we're listening to a language that we don't yet understand but there's something really powerful in that. We need to protect it and working together is how we're going to do it.
David: I want the Government Canada to know that our QENTOL, YEN program’s here and we're interested in our relatives of the deep in the Salish Sea area, where their various different tankers ships, other container ships and bulk container ships that transit through our traditional territory and we have this information. You know what? You're not doing things right to protect our relatives of the deep. In other words, I'm putting the government on notice. I'm only going to start going after more tools and take that next competitive step forward.
