"Fog clings to the Golden Gate, swallowing the booming horns of cargo ships as they attempt to warn other vessels of their presence. Onboard a small research vessel nearby, underwater microphones called hydrophones are lowered beneath the surface along with other sensors, ready to capture the hidden choir of San Francisco Bay whales. Ray Duran, founder of BayQuest, the nonprofit behind this mission, peers through his binoculars, scanning for ripples or shadows that might reveal one."
"Despite a dramatic rise in whale deaths in the Bay Area with 2025 already surpassing any year in the past-quarter century acoustic monitoring of marine mammals in and around the Bay remains limited. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration maintains a hydrophone in Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary, off the coast of Point Reyes, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) operates one in Monterey Bay. But the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific coast around the Golden Gate lacks dedicated whale monitoring."
Researchers deploy hydrophones and other sensors from a small vessel near the Golden Gate to record whale vocalizations amid heavy ship traffic. The SeaSounds Project uses acoustic monitoring to evaluate how vessel noise affects whale behavior and communication in one of the West Coast's busiest waterways. Whale deaths in the Bay Area have risen sharply, with 2025 exceeding prior decades, while dedicated acoustic monitoring inside the Bay remains limited. NOAA and MBARI maintain hydrophones offshore, but the Bay and the Pacific coast around the Golden Gate lack focused whale monitoring. SeaSounds aims to fill that gap and document vessel-related impacts.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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