Orcasphere

On December 8th the NEPTUNE Canada cabled ocean observing system started pouring data on to the Internet.  This opens the door for John Ford and his collaborators to listen for killer whales on the outer coast of southwest Vancouver Island.  The Naxys hydrophone is sensitive to 5hHz-65kHz and is located in Folger Passage at 95m [...]

I’ve been enjoying using orcasphere.net as a forum for sharing breaking news about southern residents, salmon, and related environment issues.  In the hopes of inspiring others to join me, this post is the first in a series that describe how I interact with the Orcasphere.  I’m even going to try screen-casting some demos!
At the very [...]

I recently learned about a new initiative that is wirelessly networking environmental sensors on buoys around the Salish Sea.  Developed by a wireless company called Intellicheck/Mobilisa in Port Townsend, most of the buoys provide real-time weather data, video, and/or surface water measurements.  The NPB-1 buoy, however, offers real-time profile data from north-central Puget Sound (temperature, [...]

Lyndal Johnson, NWFSC
Pre-spawn mortality of salmon is occurring in restored urban streams.  It is associated with urban development, road traffic, and storm water runoff, but concentrations of toxics aren’t high enough to account for the convulsions and lethargy.  We suspect a synergistic effect of multiple pollutants.
PAHs affect embryo development in spawned herring eggs (e.g. heart [...]

There is an increasing number of near-real-time sensors like webcams out in SRKW habitat. In an effort to keep abreast of these resources (as a community), you can now access and modify my list of favorite sensors for monitoring orca habitat in the Orcasphere wiki. This is primarily a list of web cams [...]

With special thanks for support from the Makah Tribe and coordination by Jon Scordino, there is now underwater sound streaming live from Neah Bay via the Salish Sea hydrophone network. The network is an experiment in human and automated monitoring of underwater sounds within the critical habitat of the endangered southern resident killer whales. [...]

I’ve recently been enjoying using Google calendar for sharing events and schedules with other organizations and project members.  Here is a fledgling prototype of an embedded “Orcasphere” calendar that could enable us to pool all orca-relevant education and research activities in a single interface.
http://www.orcasphere.net/calendar/
You can also get there using the “Calendar” tab in the header…

The web site is currently undergoing a renovation and migration. To save money and support open-source software, we are moving away from squarespace.com and to a Word Press installation on dreamhost.com servers. General blog articles from http://beamreach.squarespace.com, some images, and the public library will migrate here, while Beam Reach student blogs will go [...]