New sound catalogue reveals who's who in the world of killer whales

A new open-access catalogue of whale calls will help researchers and orca enthusiasts identify distinct killer whale populations, clans and family groups by their vocalizations alone.

Link: Orca Call Catalogue 
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Developed at Simon Fraser University, the Orca Call Catalogue serves as a field guide to killer whale calls, pulling decades of recordings into a searchable online library for the first time, says John Ford, scientist emeritus at Fisheries and Oceans Canada. 

“More and more people are listening for orcas on live-streaming underwater microphones along the B.C. coast, or analyzing recordings from acoustic monitoring instruments placed on the seafloor,” says Ford, who collaborated with SFU's Humans and Algorithms Listening to Orcas (HALLO) project to build the audio library.  

“With this catalogue, recordings can tell us so much more than just ‘killer whales are here.’ It tells us which ecotype it is, which clan or subclan, and, within the resident populations, which pod it is. It’s 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.”

Unique dialects act like vocal fingerprints

The Pacific Coast is home to three killer whale ecotypes, each with its own unique call sounds: resident (southern and northern), Bigg's killer whales (also known as transient) and offshore killer whales. Resident and Bigg’s ecotypes have distinct clans, which share calls that make up their dialects. There are even variations in call types between different family groups, or pods, within the same clan, Ford explains.

"Comparing the dialects of clans within a resident population like the Northern Residents would be like comparing Mandarin to Swahili,” he says. “There are no calls shared between these clans, even though they're in the same population.”

Beyond documenting and identifying each call type, the Orca Call Catalogue also captures variations in how groups make those calls.

“With practice, you can start to interpret their mood based on how they’re making a call,” says Ford. “If a call is shorter and higher pitched, it can convey excitement, much like humans tend to speak faster and raise their voices when they're excited.”

What whale calls might tell us next

This call catalogue may not be the Rosetta stone of whale talk, but knowing who is making which calls may help researchers decode what they're communicating, says Ruth Joy, principal investigator on the HALLO team.

“The killer whale brain is so different from ours, and a huge part of their brain is dedicated to acoustic processing of sound. The way we convey information and language is probably completely foreign to the way that they do,” explains Joy. “We’re trying to get closer to tying particular calls to specific activities, and tools like this catalogue are invaluable.”