Critically endangered orcas in B.C. are struggling to navigate in a sea of shipping noise

We can hear it before we see it: the grinding, churning rumble of a container ship as it rounds Stuart Island into British Columbia’s Haro Strait. It’s five kilometres away, but the ship may as well be right next to us in Chris Genovali’s living room.

The conversation in the room dies down, drowned out by the noise coming through a live monitor relaying sounds from a hydrophone under the water just past the beach nearby. As inconvenient as it is for an interview, that’s the point: The hydrophone is showing us a kind of pollution that’s invisible (and in this case, inaudible) to humans.

Our need for transportation and shipping is what’s causing all the din, but we’re not the ones who need to listen to it; the creatures that suffer the brunt of all this racket live in the ocean. Of particular interest to Mr. Genovali – and to Valeria Vergara and Lance Barrett-Lennard, his scientist colleagues at the Raincoast Conservation Foundation who are listening with us – is what all this noise means for the 75 or so Southern Resident Killer Whales left in existence.

Open this photo in gallery:

LISTEN:

Southern Resident Killer Whales communicate in their distinctive dialect of chirps and whistles. As a social animal and pack hunter, orcas display a rich array of vocalizations that vary from pod to pod.

Sound is everything to orcas, a social species that communicates vocally, and navigates and hunts using echolocation.

“They have to co-ordinate where to go, they have to co-ordinate where to forage for fish,” Ms. Vergara says. “They are animals that depend on sound to eat.”

Raincoast scientists, including Mr. Barrett-Lennard, co-authored a study in Nature Communications in early April that described the factors driving the extinction of orcas. They specifically charted the effect of noise on the species’ decline, concluding: “It may be necessary to consider ocean noise budgets, caps, or limits that allow killer whales to hunt scarce prey efficiently.”

Critical habitat protected at different scales

Ship traffic through orcas' critical habitat is constrained by a number of different strategies for

protection. In some places, shipping lanes have been moved; in others, traffic is slowed. Interim

Sanctuary Zones temporarily close some small areas to all traffic.

Southern Gulf Islands

Interim Sanctuary Zones

Area-Based Fishery Closures

Speed Restricted Zones

Voluntary Speed Reduction Zone

400m Avoidance Distance

Texada

Island

ECHO Program Large Commercial

Vessel Slowdowns (Voluntary)

Strait of

Georgia

Traffic Separation Schemes

Vancouver

Vancouver Island

Critical

habitat:

Salish Sea

BRITISH COLUMBIA

WASHINGTON

Pacific Ocean

Southern

Gulf Islands

Port

Renfrew

La Perouse

Bank

Victoria

Shipping

routes

40KM

Strait of Juan de Fuca

Critical habitat protected at different scales

Ship traffic through orcas' critical habitat is constrained by a number of different

strategies for protection. In some places, shipping lanes have been moved; in

others, traffic is slowed. Interim Sanctuary Zones temporarily close some small

areas to all traffic.

Southern Gulf Islands

Interim Sanctuary Zones

Area-Based Fishery Closures

Speed Restricted Zones

Voluntary Speed Reduction Zone

400m Avoidance Distance

Texada

Island

ECHO Program Large Commercial

Vessel Slowdowns (Voluntary)

Strait of

Georgia

Traffic Separation Schemes

Vancouver

Vancouver Island

Critical

habitat:

Salish Sea

BRITISH COLUMBIA

WASHINGTON

Pacific Ocean

Southern

Gulf Islands

Port

Renfrew

La Perouse

Bank

Victoria

CANADA

Shipping

routes

U.S.

40KM

Strait of Juan de Fuca

Critical habitat protected at different scales

Ship traffic through orcas' critical habitat is constrained by a number of different strategies for protection.

In some places, shipping lanes have been moved; in others, traffic is slowed. Interim Sanctuary Zones

temporarily close some small areas to all traffic.

Southern Gulf Islands

Interim Sanctuary Zones

Campbell

River

Area-Based Fishery Closures

Speed Restricted Zones

Voluntary Speed Reduction Zone

400m Avoidance Distance

Texada

Island

ECHO Program Large Commercial

Vessel Slowdowns (Voluntary)

Traffic Separation Schemes

Strait of

Georgia

Vancouver

Vancouver Island

Critical

habitat:

Salish Sea

BRITISH COLUMBIA

WASHINGTON

Pacific Ocean

Southern

Gulf Islands

Port

Renfrew

La Perouse

Bank

Victoria

Shipping

routes

40KM

Strait of Juan de Fuca

The opposite is happening here in the Southern Gulf Islands of B.C., where it’s about to get a whole lot noisier. The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion began commercial operations this month, and the company estimates it will attract 444 new ships every year, a seven-fold increase to the tanker traffic in the area.

Another major project, the expansion of the Roberts Bank shipping terminal south of Vancouver, got federal approval last year. Although its purpose is to enable space for bigger, rather than more, ships, just how loud those will be is not known – and the terminal’s overlap with the orcas’ critical habitat has inspired environmental groups to launch a legal challenge against it.

In that local fight is a reflection of a deeper conundrum about how to navigate the relationship between economic growth and environmental health, a question that scientists, government and industry are all racing to answer.

Mr. Genovali became aware of the scale of the noise-pollution issue this February, a few months after the hydrophone began broadcasting sounds from the water. He was sitting in his living room one evening, which overlooks the passage south of Pender Island, watching a pod of Southern Resident orcas swimming through. As he looked across the water, he was also listening to them through the monitor.

“They were engaged in this amazing array of calls and communicating with one another,” he recalls. But when a series of ships entered the area, the chatter was drowned out.

“It obliterates everything else,” he says. The chugging ships “completely masked all the communication that was going on. And you can hear, on the hydrophone, the whales straining to communicate – shouting above the noise.”

Open this photo in gallery:

LISTEN:

The loud churning of a ship overpowers the orcas’ communication, with noise across the pitch spectrum. Higher frequency (high-pitched) sounds are more likely to interfere directly with communication and hunting, but lower frequency sounds can also disturb the whales.

Mr. Barrett-Lennard has heard the effects of ship noise, too, over a long career studying orcas, first under the tutelage of legendary Canadian orca scientist John Ford and later at the Vancouver Aquarium-affiliated science organization Ocean Wise. He says observing the disturbing phenomenon has changed him.

“Once you’ve heard killer whales’ communicating being obliterated by noise, you’re never the same, in terms of how you feel about the threats we pose to these animals – and particularly the acoustic threat,” he said.

Other human-caused factors come into play when considering the threat to Southern Residents. The whales preferentially hunt Chinook salmon, the population of which has been in steady decline for decades because of a combination of overfishing, spawning habitat loss and climate change. Ship strikes have killed at least four Southern Residents, a 2020 study found. And the species is known to be among the most contaminated whales in the world, rife with what are known as “forever chemicals” – human-made compounds found in plastics and flame retardants, among many other things – which can cause hormone disruption, immune system impairment and reproductive difficulties.

But of all the factors driving the population down, the one that’s on the cusp of the biggest increase is noise.

A shared acoustic environment

Ships inject noise into an ecosystem where sound ties

together predators and prey, and allows communication

between individuals. Orcas are particularly

dependent on their ability to hear and be

heard, but many other species also use

sound. An additional 444 oil tankers are

expected to be added to current

traffic once the Trans Mountain

pipeline expansion is

fully operational.

Echolocation

Outgoing

sound

Blowhole

Melon

Brain

Ships produce

sound waves

that interfere

with an orca’s

communication

Jawbone

Incoming

sound

Orca sends out ‘click train’

of sound waves to locate

fish at more than 150 m

Southern resident

killer whale (SRKW)

Name: Killer whale or orca

(Orcinus orca)

Port of Vancouver ship traffic

Social: The SRKW lives in

an extended family made up

of three pods

Return

sound

waves

Annual Foreign Vessel Arrivals

3K

Diet: Mostly chinook salmon

2K

Key threats: Shipping; noise;

pollution; oil spills; declining

food

1K

Not to scale

2014

2016

2018

2020

2022

PORT OF VANCOUVER

Orcas are drowned out

Sound can be measured on a spectrum that includes higher and lower frequencies (also known as pitches). Different species use different frequencies for their behaviours, including communication and hunting — and ships make noise in those same frequencies. In this graphic, darker shades indicate where most of the noise lies on the spectrum.

Low-frequency cetaceans

Mid-frequency cetaceans

High-frequency cetaceans

Low-frequency cetaceans

Mid-frequency cetaceans

High-frequency cetaceans

Large ships

Small boats

.001 kHz

.01 kHz

.1 kHz

1 kHz

10 kHz

100 kHz

1 MHz

john sopinski and jimmy thomson/the globe and mail, SOURCE: openstreetmap;

noaa fisheries; wwf.ca; government of canada; sciencemag.org

A shared acoustic environment

Ships inject noise into an ecosystem where sound ties together

predators and prey, and allows communication between

individuals. Orcas are particularly dependent on their

ability to hear and be heard, but many other

species also use sound. An additional 444 oil

tankers are expected to be added

to current traffic once

the Trans Mountain pipeline

expansion is fully

operational.

Echolocation

Outgoing

sound

Blowhole

Melon

Brain

Ships produce

sound waves

that interfere

with an orca’s

communication

Jawbone

Incoming

sound

Orca sends out ‘click train’

of sound waves to locate

fish at more than 150 m

Southern resident

killer whale (SRKW)

Name: Killer whale or orca

(Orcinus orca)

Social: The SRKW lives in

an extended family made up

of three pods

Port of Vancouver ship traffic

Return

sound

waves

Annual Foreign Vessel Arrivals

3K

Diet: Mostly chinook salmon

Key threats: Shipping; noise;

pollution; oil spills; declining

food

2K

1K

Not to scale

2014

2016

2018

2020

2022

PORT OF VANCOUVER

Orcas are drowned out

Sound can be measured on a spectrum that includes higher and lower frequencies (also known as pitches). Different species use different frequencies for their behaviours, including communication and hunting — and ships make noise in those same frequencies. In this graphic, darker shades indicate where most of the noise lies on the spectrum.

Low-frequency cetaceans

Mid-frequency cetaceans

High-frequency cetaceans

Low-frequency cetaceans

Mid-frequency cetaceans

High-frequency cetaceans

Large ships

Small boats

.001 kHz

.01 kHz

.1 kHz

1 kHz

10 kHz

100 kHz

1 MHz

john sopinski and jimmy thomson/the globe and mail, SOURCE: openstreetmap;

noaa fisheries; wwf.ca; government of canada; sciencemag.org

A shared acoustic environment

Echolocation

Ships inject noise into an ecosystem where sound ties

together predators and prey, and allows communica-

tion between individuals. Orcas are particularly

dependent on their ability to hear and be

heard, but many other species also use

sound. An additional 444 oil tankers

are expected to be added to

current traffic once the Trans

Mountain pipeline

expansion is fully

operational.

Outgoing

sound

Blowhole

Melon

Ships produce

sound waves

that interfere

with an orca’s

communication

Brain

Jawbone

Incoming

sound

Orca sends out ‘click train’

of sound waves to locate

fish at more than 150 m

Southern resident

killer whale (SRKW)

Name: Killer whale or orca

(Orcinus orca)

Port of Vancouver ship traffic

Social: The SRKW lives in

an extended family made

up of three pods

Return

sound

waves

Annual Foreign Vessel Arrivals

3K

Diet: Mostly chinook salmon

2K

Key threats: Shipping; noise;

pollution; oil spills; declining

food

1K

Not to scale

2014

2016

2018

2020

2022

PORT OF VANCOUVER

Orcas are drowned out

Sound can be measured on a spectrum that includes higher and lower frequencies (also known as pitches). Different species use different frequencies for their behaviours, including communication and hunting — and ships make noise in those same frequencies. In this graphic, darker shades indicate where most of the noise lies on the spectrum.

Low-frequency cetaceans

Mid-frequency cetaceans

High-frequency cetaceans

Low-frequency cetaceans

Mid-frequency cetaceans

High-frequency cetaceans

Large ships

Small boats

.001 kHz

.01 kHz

.1 kHz

1 kHz

10 kHz

100 kHz

1 MHz

john sopinski and jimmy thomson/the globe and mail, SOURCE: openstreetmap; noaa fisheries;

wwf.ca; government of canada; sciencemag.org

Ships make noise by several means, including the engine, the propeller and the hull itself. The vibrations of the engine resonate through the ship, while the churning propeller generates bubbles that then implode, a phenomenon known as cavitation. A ship that’s pushing harder through the water is likely to vibrate and cavitate more.

Simply put: “Slower ships emit less noise,” explains David Barclay, an ocean physicist at Dalhousie University.

That’s the reasoning behind the Port of Vancouver’s ECHO program, which, since 2014, has encouraged ships loading and unloading in the Lower Mainland to go slowly through particularly sensitive parts of the approach. It has also moved shipping lanes for some traffic.

“The reason that we stepped up first is, back then, the government wasn’t doing anything in this space,” explains Duncan Wilson, who is the port’s vice president of environment and external affairs. “So there was a real need for us to look at what we could do.”

The ECHO program has lowered ship noise intensity in some areas by nearly half – with some caveats.

The program only runs through the summer months, and, although critical habitat for Southern Resident Killer Whales extends the entire length of the swooping route from the tip of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula up to Vancouver, the slowdowns and lane displacements only cover part of that distance.

Further, a 2021 study found that even when ships go slower, some of the sounds they make at a higher frequency don’t decrease at the same rate as those at a lower frequency – so the higher-pitched chirps of communicating orcas, and the echolocation clicks, are still masked. This suggests that some – but not all – of the noise reduction is actually making a difference in the whales’ exposure to the sound that matters most to their ability to hunt and communicate.

The quieting also might not last long in the face of new projects in the region.

That’s the basis for a legal challenge launched by a coalition of environmental groups, including Raincoast and the Georgia Strait Alliance, which claims that the federal government has an obligation under its own laws to avoid harm to species known to be in danger.

“The whole purpose of the Species at Risk Act is to prevent extinction, and provide for recovery and take a precautionary approach when we’re dealing with threatened species,” says Dyna Tuytel, a lawyer for Ecojustice, who is representing the groups.

Christianne Wilhelmson, the former director of the Georgia Strait Alliance, says the continuing development of new projects in the area flies in the face of the need to improve conditions for the whales, in order to arrest their decline.

“The conditions on this project aren’t about making things better,” she says. “They’re about making things ‘not worse.’ ”

Mr. Wilson says the port’s job is to responsibly facilitate the growth of Canada’s trade, not to determine how much trade the country should do, and that bottom line is about to rise – dragging ECHO along with it.

A December, 2023, report from JASCO Applied Sciences, an independent consulting firm specializing in ocean noise, examined ECHO’s hydrophone data in the context of the expected surge in traffic from the Trans Mountain expansion. It found that most of the benefit from ECHO’s slowdowns will be eaten up by the additional noise from that new traffic, even though those vessels will also be moving more slowly in compliance with ECHO.

(That JASCO model did not consider the additional impacts of the ships that will visit the new Roberts Bank terminal.)

The continuation of the push toward more, and bigger, ships at the cost of the acoustic environment is frustrating to Mr. Barrett-Lenard.

“The port set [ECHO] up to try to mitigate existing noise, not to create acoustic space that they could then fill up with new developments,” Mr. Barrett-Lenard says. “You’ve got all these shipping companies that have increased the cost of doing business – to be fair to them – by complying with the slowdown measures. And now we’ve got a new player that comes along and largely wipes out the progress that they’ve made.”

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In approving the Trans Mountain project, the federal government committed to “more than mitigate the impact” of the noise from the new vessel traffic, suggesting a broad array of measures were on the table.

When the expansion was under government review in 2017, Fisheries and Oceans Canada examined different ways ship noise can be mitigated, from operational strategies like the ECHO slowdowns or using convoys of ships to lessen the number of individual disruptions to the orcas, to source-based measures like removing some of the loudest ships from the fleet or retrofitting ships with new propellers.

Sending ships in convoys, it found, was one of the most promising solutions, alongside time restrictions and reducing ship speed, and the report suggested a combination of approaches would be the best strategy to take.

Mr. Barrett-Lenard says convoys are gaining popularity, even among shipping companies.

“It’s something that was seen as impractical and impossible, and not very effective, a few years ago; it’s now being discussed and seen as a really viable option,” he says.

But that’s not what is happening.

“[T]here are a number of issues that make the concept of convoys complex, including ship scheduling and safety considerations, and the unpredictable nature of whale presence,” wrote Alex Munro, the Port of Vancouver’s senior communications adviser, in an e-mail. Instead, ECHO “has focused on more feasible and practical mitigations with known benefits” – slowing ships and moving shipping lanes.

One of the single biggest changes that could make a difference in ship noise happens well before the ships even enter the Salish Sea – changes in ship design.

“There is so much technology that can make a really significant difference in noise,” says Michael Jasny, the marine mammal program director at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). But these measures need to be adopted, and soon, he adds. “I think there’s been a lot of wind up, but we’re still waiting for the pitch.”

Open this photo in gallery:

To speed adoption, the port is encouraging ship owners to quiet their vessels by offering discounts on the berthing fees ships pay to use the port; the highest-rated ships get a 75-per-cent discount.

The port authority’s multifaceted push to reduce noise is praised by environmental activists, but they consistently point to a weakness in relying on ECHO to justify new projects: There is no target for reduction.

“We don’t know what that healthy threshold is yet,” Mr. Wilson admits, adding that the target should be a measurable recovery of the species.

And environmentalists argue that a target should be based on a time when the oceans were quieter – when orcas could hunt and communicate freely, without the constant disturbance of human activity roaring overhead.

“A real baseline would be 60 years ago, before the dramatic increase in underwater noise all over our oceans,” Ms. Vergara said.

This article was supported by a grant from the Sitka Foundation and Science Media Centre of Canada