{"id":615786,"date":"2026-09-29T23:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T23:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/615786\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T23:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T23:02:13","slug":"cracking-orca-dialects-new-tool-catalogues-killer-whale-calls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/615786\/","title":{"rendered":"Cracking orca dialects: New tool catalogues killer whale calls"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new open-access catalogue of whale calls will allow researchers and orca enthusiasts to identify distinct killer whale populations, clans, and family groups by their vocalisations alone \u2013 turning decades of scattered recordings into a searchable field guide for the first time.<\/p>\n

Developed at Simon Fraser University, the Orca Call Catalogue was built in collaboration with SFU\u2019s Humans and Algorithms Listening to Orcas (HALLO) project.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to John Ford, a scientist emeritus at Fisheries and Oceans Canada who worked on the audio library, the catalogue arrives just as underwater listening becomes increasingly widespread along the British Columbia coastline.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore and more people are listening for orcas on live-streaming underwater microphones along the British Columbia coast, or analysing recordings from acoustic monitoring instruments placed on the seafloor,\u201d said Ford.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this catalogue, recordings can tell us so much more than just \u2018killer whales are here\u2019. It tells us which ecotype it is, which clan or subclan, and, within the resident populations, which pod it is. It\u2019s incredibly valuable for conservation, helping us track movement patterns that relate to prey, identify critical habitat at different times of the year, and look at how disturbance like noise might be affecting the whales.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Pacific Coast is home to three killer whale ecotypes, each with its own distinct call sounds: resident (southern and northern), Bigg\u2019s killer whales (also known as transient), and offshore killer whales. Resident and Bigg\u2019s ecotypes have distinct clans that share calls forming their own dialects, and even different family groups \u2013 or pods \u2013 within the same clan show variation in their call types.<\/p>\n

\u201cComparing the dialects of clans within a resident population like the Northern Residents would be like comparing Mandarin to Swahili,\u201d said Ford. \u201cThere are no calls shared between these clans, even though they\u2019re in the same population.\u201d<\/p>\n

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