Listening to whales: A new lens on killer whale communication

In 2025, the Cetacean Conservation Research Program launched a groundbreaking collaboration to study killer whale communication through an integrated, multimodal approach. The project brings together Raincoast’s field research expertise and the Earth Species Project’s (ESP) cutting-edge artificial intelligence tools for decoding animal communication to explore how killer whales use sound to navigate, coordinate, and maintain their complex social lives.

This collaborative initiative combines synchronized underwater recordings, drone footage, and machine learning to link specific calls to the behaviours, social roles, and group contexts in which they occur. It also seeks to understand how human ocean noise disrupts these vital interactions.

Earlier this year, we shared this Q&A and short video filmed during the project’s early testing phase aboard Achiever, when the team spent two days trialing equipment and refining methods in preparation for the pilot study. 
A two-week pilot study, conducted in British Columbia in August 2025 with researchers from Raincoast, the Earth Species Project, and the Icelandic Orca Project, demonstrated the feasibility and promise of this approach. Working in the waters off northeastern Vancouver Island, researchers collected synchronized underwater recordings and drone footage of Northern Resident and Bigg’s killer whales, capturing scenes of coordinated foraging, prey sharing, and social interaction – where they could be seen and heard simultaneously in real time.

The pilot confirmed that by integrating field biology, technology, and artificial intelligence, we can begin to uncover killer whale communication dynamics with unprecedented levels of detail. These efforts are helping reveal how calls function to coordinate behaviours such as navigation, hunting, prey sharing, and caregiving, laying the groundwork for a broader understanding of how sound functions in orca societies.

From local insight to global understanding

The next phase will expand the project to a cross-population, standardized framework for studying killer whale communication, one that connects directly to a planned parallel effort in Iceland. By listening closely to these whales, the team aims to deepen their understanding of the complex acoustic communication that underlies the species’ cultural richness, and to identify which aspects are most sensitive to disturbance. This knowledge will help guide effective noise-mitigation strategies to restore the quality of their acoustic environment.

This project aims to transform how we study and protect the social lives of killer whales. Orcas are a culturally diverse species, and studying them across regions is essential to understanding both the diversity and the shared foundations of their vocal systems – and how they adapt to changing environments.

One of our long-term goals is to establish a scalable, global framework for comparative studies of killer whale communication. By developing standardized protocols for synchronizing behavioural and acoustic data and integrating advanced machine-learning approaches, the project will create tools that other researchers can adopt worldwide.

Advancing methods for decoding non-human communication will also inform how researchers study and protect other sound-centered species. Insights gained from Northern Residents will help guide conservation strategies for Canada’s endangered Southern Resident killers, whose population of 73 individuals continues to struggle to recover. 

Ultimately, this work bridges science, technology, and conservation, using innovation to decode and protect the communication systems that hold orca societies together.

A long-term commitment

Studying long-lived, socially complex species demands sustained commitment. Communication systems, like cultures, unfold over years, not field seasons. Our work must span generations of whales to reveal how knowledge, calls, and behaviours are transmitted, and how human noise threatens their social lives. Each year of data deepens the foundation for meaningful insight, building toward a global comparative framework that links this research across oceans and cultures.

We are now cementing the partnerships and infrastructure to ensure this project thrives. In essence, this is not a short-term study but the launch of a global initiative to listen to whales on their own terms. It is a long-term, evolving effort that blends science, technology, curiosity and ethics to understand and protect these extraordinary societies.

Join Us

This work represents the beginning of a new chapter in understanding whale communication, and in reimagining how science and technology can serve conservation. With continued support, Raincoast and partners plan to expand this collaboration to Iceland, and eventually to regions as far-reaching as Australia and Antarctica.

Together, we can listen more deeply to safeguard the social and acoustic lives of whales.