A JFC Marine Data Buoy is to monitor how noise impacts whales and dolphins was deployed off the coast of Baltimore, west Cork, as part of Ireland’s first ever real-time acoustic monitoring project. This specially designed Data Buoy will gather data for this project over the next year and is sited off the coast of Baltimore. The Smart Whale Sounds project is being undertaken by Ocean Research and Conservation Association (ORCA) Ireland, a non-profit organisation based in Cork, in partnership with Rainforest Connection and supported by Huawei Ireland.
Lead researcher Emer Keaveney of ORCAIreland, who is a marine mammal ecologist, said: “Increased levels of marine traffic from container ships, pleasure boats, speedboats, and eco-tour operators has created a significant noise pollution issue. According to Ms Keaveney “Sound pollution causes as much damage to marine life as overfishing, pollution and climate change, and is believed to cause behavioural changes that interfere with the health and survival of the animals.”
An autonomous hydrophone, akin to an underwater microphone, will be attached to the buoy. It will record whale species in real-time and train sophisticated machine learning models to identify different species calls, the researchers said.
The data will be used to create a marine wildlife detection and classification model, which has the potential to be applied to other projects across the globe, they added.
The researchers said that the project will provide a much greater understanding of what is happening on Ireland’s ocean floors.
It will assist with the identification and classification of species in Irish waters, their distribution and behaviour, and how noise pollution is changing these patterns, they said.
