This post is a press release issued by Bayquest, Sofar's collaborator in the SeaSounds Project.
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A new project to study humpback whales is taking shape in the San Francisco Bay area and is capturing widespread interest within the marine science community. The SeaSounds Project is a vessel-based, passive acoustic monitoring program to study the impacts of vessel interactions on the behavior and vocalization of whales off the San Francisco Coast.

The brain child of BayQuest, a bay area-based nonprofit start-up team of professional captains, conservationists and marine science educators, it is a dynamic collaboration that includes the brightest minds in research, acoustics and the blue technology sector.

Acoustic monitoring of whales involves listening to and recording underwater sounds to better understand habitat behaviors and the natural ambient sounds of the seascape. It utilizes hydrophones - uater microphones - to detect and record marine life activity and provides valuable data for conservation and management efforts.

Marine animals such as whales, dolphins and other species rely on sound to analyze their surroundings, hunt for food, communicate with one another and act as a navigational aid during their annual migrations. According to NOAA, anthropogenic noise from human activities has been shown to disrupt this natural soundscape while introducing stress and altering behavior in vulnerable species.

Project Lead and co-creator, Firuze Gokce is a board member of the American Cetacean Society- San Francisco Chapter and long time whale conservationist and artist. She has been involved in a number of projects and organizations that utilize advanced acoustics in their research and brings a wealth of passion and experience to the BayQuest team.

“Our Pacific whale populations are facing new challenges from changing source food abundance to increased vessel encounters," says Gokce. “Doing everything we can to understand these challenges can help us develop more sustainable conservation solutions.”

The collaboration includes Aquarium of the Bay, the popular aquarium facility based at San Francisco’s Pier 39, who will provide the research vessel, R/V Mike Reigle and include members of its Animal Care Team on field missions.

“This project provides the perfect opportunity to put our vessel and team out on the water advancing new marine science technologies in an effort to better understand and protect humpback whales in the region," says Melissa Schouest, Director of Animal Care at the Aquarium.

The SeaSounds Project will use Sofar Ocean’s Spotter Sound solution as its core passive acoustic monitoring technology. Spotter Sound is a new configuration of Sofar’s Spotter Platform — a modular, durable, and rapidly deployable marine sensing system — that combines Applied Ocean Sciences’ (AOS) intelligent hydrophone, BOREALIS, with BlueOASIS’ onboard AI platform, HydroTWIN. Spotter Sound enables long-duration, real-time, remote machine learning detection and classification of underwater noise.‍

BayQuest was selected as an early adopter of Spotter Sound, which Sofar has now made available to marine professionals worldwide.

“We’re excited to see the SeaSounds Project utilizing Spotter Sound to study how vessel activity affects whale behavior and vocalization — right here off the San Francisco coast,“ said Dan Breyre, Head of Spotter Product at Sofar. “Studies like these are historically costly and complex but, in collaboration with AOS and BlueOASIS, we are proud to shift that paradigm and deliver real-time acoustic detections at scale.”

Bay Area captain and BayQuest founder, Ray Duran believes emerging blue technologies in bioacoustics can advance our understanding of underwater ocean life and lead to more sustainable conservation efforts for endangered marine wildlife.

“Using advanced underwater hydrophones while at the same time documenting visual observations enables us to see what we are hearing and hear what we are seeing," commented Duran.

Acoustic monitoring to study whales is widespread along the east coast as a measure to help protect North Atlantic Right Whales and is an active component of whale research efforts in the pacific northwest, southern California near the Channel Islands and in Monterey Bay. There is currently an acoustics research gap in the near coastal region of San Francisco Bay where the co-occurrence of whales and shipping traffic remains dangerously high.

Duran believes the SeaSounds Project can help fill this gap and provide researchers and policymakers with valuable decision-making data.

The team of advisors who have generously helped guide the development of this project include prominent marine science and acoustics professionals from Cornell University, CalMaritime Academy, MBARI, Ocean Conservation Research, Cascadia Research, Point Blue Conservation Science, HappyWhale, Orcasound and others.

Vessel strikes and entanglement in fishing gear remain the leading cause of mortality and injuries to humpback whales. It is estimated that up to 80 whales die each year off the west coast due to vessel strikes but experts say the number could be much higher since collisions often go unnoticed and whale carcasses tend to sink to the bottom. In 2024, NOAA reported 23 confirmed whale entanglements off the California coast, out of a total of 36 confirmed entanglements along the entire West Coast.

The BayQuest team effort joins a host of other science and research organizations advancing initiatives designed to help minimize these risks including voluntary seasonal slow down measures in areas of high whale concentrations, sea floor-mounted acoustic monitoring stations and new innovations in lineless fishing gear.

“Our ultimate goal is to help create a peaceful co-existence where people and local marine life can thrive for generations," added Duran. “Using modern technology and a dream team of collaborators, the SeaSounds Project helps move us closer toward that goal."