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Orca Sound Participation Journal

  • Participation journal:
    • The training for this project was minimal yet fun and engaging. The participant is instructed to listen to several audio clips of different sounds that occur in the Salish Sea. Many of the sounds are anthopogenic like noises from speed boats, fishing vesicles, military SONAR, aircraft, and construction. But there are also a lot of natural sounds made by the inhabitants of the Salish sea like the harbor seal, sea gulls, gray whales, humpback whales, orcas, harbor porpoise, and California sea lions just to name a few. The participant is instructed to listen to all the different kinds of sound they might here and is then told to report any suspected identifications of orca sound to the researchers. I began listening to the natural sounds first because that is what I was most interested in hearing. Natural sounds we somewhat quieter and subtler than what I thought they would be so I turn the volume up on my headphones to get a better listen. I then switched to listening to human made sounds. I'm not sure if the researchers deliberately made these recordings louder than the natural ones but I actually hurt my ears a bit when I first played one of them. The pile drivers used in harbor construction and the military sonar were especially loud. 
    • The most interesting aspect of this project was the training. Being able to hear all the different sounds, natural and otherwise, that occur in our oceans was truly enlightening. Sitting and listening to the live audio feeds gives you time to reflect on how massive the ocean is and how massive a task it must be to communicate in in. Listening to harbor and shipping channel activities also gives you an idea of how far Man's reach has really gone. We have explored only a faction of our oceans yet our activities have polluted much of it whether it's an oil spill or noise pollution. Although I wasn't able to hear any orcas, I mostly just heard shipping vessels and ferries, I still enjoyed the experience and was able to appreciate the evolution of these creatures to their environment.
    •  I mostly listened to the audio feeds on the weekends Oct 28 from 5-6pm (training), Nov 3th from 8-9:30pm, and Nov 10th from 4-5pm.
  •  I think this project would be a cool thing to do every once in awhile, mainly when there is more natural activity in the Salish Sea around summer. This is definitely a project that I would encourage my friends to do if only to listen to the recordings of animals. 

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