Whale Casting: Remote mobile streaming humpback whale vocalizations to the world

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a cost-effective method for real-time remote streaming of humpback whale vocalizations from sea to shore, enabling broader access and integration into behavioral databases.

Contribution

It introduces a practical setup for live streaming whale sounds at sea using off-the-shelf equipment, with recommendations for scaling and improving quality.

Findings

Real-time streaming of whale vocalizations is feasible with inexpensive equipment.

The setup allows integration of acoustic data into behavioral databases.

The approach broadens access to whale acoustic behavior for researchers and the public.

Abstract

Over several days in early August 2021, while at sea in Chatham Strait, Southeast Alaska, aboard M/Y Blue Pearl, an online twitch.tv stream broadcast in real-time humpback whale vocalizations monitored via hydrophone. Dozens on mainland North American and around the planet listened in and chatted via the stream. The webcasts demonstrated a proof-of-concept: only relatively inexpensive commercial-off-the-shelf equipment is required for remote mobile streaming at sea. These notes document what was required and make recommendations for higher-quality and larger-scale deployments. One conclusion is that real-time, automated audio documenting whale acoustic behavior is readily accessible and, using the cloud, it can be directly integrated into behavioral databases -- information sources that now often focus exclusively on nonreal-time visual-sighting narrative reports and photography.