$9.5M underwater listening hire to guard Salish Sea as partial of sovereign whale initiative

Federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau spent some of his time in Vancouver on Thursday behind a lectern touting a new $9.5 million underwater listening station.

The new hydrophones will be commissioned in Boundary Pass nearby Saturna Island, with a idea of monitoring a underwater sound that endangered southern proprietor torpedo whales are frequently subjected to.

Minister of Transport Marc Garneau speaks to media in Vancouver on Thursday. Garneau announced sum of a new underwater listening hire to guard shipping sound in a Salish Sea. (Rafferty Baker/CBC)

“Marine sound levels can impact torpedo whales’ ability to hunt and communicate,” pronounced Garneau, adding that a new listening hire will detect and magnitude vessel noise, sea reptile information and ambient sound data.

But a proclamation wasn’t accurately new. In June, a sovereign supervision announced a $167.4 million ‘Whales Initiative,’ and a devise minute on Thursday is enclosed in that plan.

Christianne Wilhelmson, executive executive of a charge group, Georgia Strait Alliance, had a churned greeting to a Boundary Pass listening hire project.

“We’re all for research, though fundamentally this won’t change anything for a orcas when they lapse in May,” pronounced Wilhelmson. “Their sourroundings will still be noisy. We still don’t have targets — we don’t know how still we wish a Salish Sea to be.”

She wants to see some-more movement on safeguarding chinook salmon habitat, that would advantage orcas. Wilhelmson also wanted to see a vessel speed hearing in Haro Strait done permanent.

“There have been several announcements over a past many months about hydrophones. It’s a good thing, carrying infrastructure in place so we can know where a orcas are, so we can learn some-more about them, quite in a area where [vessel] slow-downs have been trialled,” said Wilhelmson.

Transportation Minister Marc Garneau speaks to Lance Barrett-Lennard, executive of sea reptile investigate during Oceanwise. Barrett-Lennard had only demonstrated a hydrophone in Vancouver’s bustling port, display Garneau a volume of sound wickedness underwater. (Rafferty Baker/CBC)

But she pronounced Garneau’s proclamation on Thursday was “not an proclamation of action.”

Garneau pronounced in his remarks that a intentional boat slow-down trial in a Haro Strait worked really well, and it would be continued in a future. That hearing is now over for a year, as a southern proprietor torpedo whales have left a area.

Follow Rafferty Baker on Twitter: @raffertybaker

Article source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/marc-garneau-reannouncement-of-hydrophones-1.4926660?cmp=rss