Off the coast of British Columbia, where the ocean holds more conversation than most humans realize, researchers have built a library not of words but of voices — the distinct calls of killer whales, catalogued so precisely that a recording alone can name the family. Simon Fraser University's Orca Call Catalogue, born from decades of underwater listening, offers science a new kind of fluency: the ability to identify which whales are present, which clan they belong to, and perhaps, in time, what they are trying to say. It is a reminder that language, in its deepest sense, did not begin with us.
New Orca Call Catalogue Enables Species Identification by Vocalization
Dialects of clans are like comparing Mandarin to Swahili
Mark
So this is basically a field guide to whale sounds. But why does it matter if we can identify which orca is which just by listening?
Mimi
Because movement and survival are tied to sound. If you know which pod is in an area, you can track whether they're following food sources, or if they're avoiding certain places. That tells you what habitat they actually need.
Luke
But the catalogue itself—it's just organizing existing recordings, right? It's not new data about what the calls mean?
Mimi
Correct. It's a tool for interpretation. Ford and Joy are both clear that they don't yet know what most of these calls signify.
Mark
The comparison to Mandarin and Swahili—does that mean clans literally cannot understand each other?
Mimi
That's the implication. They have no shared calls. Whether that means they can't communicate or simply don't, we don't know yet.
Luke
And the emotional reading—the idea that a higher-pitched call means excitement—how confident are we in that?
Mimi
Ford says it requires practice and pattern recognition. He's not claiming certainty. It's more like learning to read tone in a language you don't speak.
Mark
What happens next? Is someone actually trying to decode what the calls mean?
Mimi
That's what Joy's team is working toward. The catalogue is the foundation. Now they can correlate specific calls with specific behaviors and see if patterns emerge.
Luke
And the conservation angle—how directly does this help protect whales?
Mimi
It lets researchers measure noise disturbance, track population movement, and identify critical habitat. That information feeds into policy and protection decisions.
The Pulse
- Decades of orca recordings were scattered and difficult to use — the new catalogue makes them searchable, turning raw sound into identifiable populations, clans, and pods.
- The stakes are real: without knowing which whales are where and when, conservationists cannot determine critical habitats, track behavioral changes, or measure the damage done by underwater noise pollution.
- Killer whale dialects are so distinct that comparing clans within the same population is like comparing Mandarin to Swahili — no shared calls, no overlap, even among neighbors.
- Researchers are now attempting the harder leap: moving from identification to interpretation, correlating specific calls with specific behaviors to begin decoding what orcas actually communicate.
- The catalogue is openly accessible, meaning anyone with a hydrophone — from scientists to citizen listeners — can now contribute meaningfully to understanding one of the ocean's most acoustically sophisticated species.
Off the coast of British Columbia, where the ocean holds more conversation than most humans realize, researchers have built a library not of words but of voices — the distinct calls of killer whales, catalogued so precisely that a recording alone can name the family. Simon Fraser University's Orca Call Catalogue, born from decades of underwater listening, offers science a new kind of fluency: the ability to identify which whales are present, which clan they belong to, and perhaps, in time, what they are trying to say. It is a reminder that language, in its deepest sense, did not begin with us.
Researchers studying killer whales off British Columbia now have a tool that transforms underwater recordings into precise identifications. The Orca Call Catalogue, developed at Simon Fraser University through the Humans and Algorithms Listening to Orcas project, compiles decades of acoustic data into a searchable library — so that a recording of clicks and whistles can reveal not just that orcas are present, but which ecotype, which clan, and which pod produced the sound.
John Ford, a scientist emeritus at Fisheries and Oceans Canada who helped build the catalogue, explains why that specificity matters. As more people listen to live-streamed hydrophones or seafloor instruments along the coast, the catalogue upgrades what those recordings can tell us. Researchers can now track how whales move in response to food, identify critical habitat across seasons, and detect whether noise disturbance is altering behavior — questions that require knowing exactly who is vocalizing.
The catalogue is grounded in a remarkable biological fact: killer whales carry vocal fingerprints. Each ecotype has its own call repertoire, and within ecotypes, clans share dialects so distinct from one another that Ford compares them to Mandarin versus Swahili — no overlap, even among whales sharing the same waters. Individual pods add further variation, and even the texture of a call carries meaning; a shorter, higher-pitched version of a call can signal excitement, much as a raised human voice signals animation.
Ruth Joy, the project's principal investigator, is measured about what the catalogue achieves. It is not a translation device for whale language — the killer whale brain processes sound in ways likely alien to human cognition. But by anchoring specific calls to specific animals and populations, it builds the foundation for harder questions: what do these calls mean, how do different populations communicate, and how is noise pollution disrupting a species that depends almost entirely on sound to navigate, hunt, and remain connected to family.
Researchers studying killer whales off the British Columbia coast now have a new tool: an open-access library of orca calls, compiled from decades of recordings and organized so that anyone with a hydrophone can identify which whales are passing by. The Orca Call Catalogue, developed at Simon Fraser University in collaboration with the Humans and Algorithms Listening to Orcas project, transforms raw acoustic data into searchable, identifiable patterns—turning a recording of clicks and whistles into a precise answer about which population, clan, and family group made the sound.
John Ford, a scientist emeritus at Fisheries and Oceans Canada who helped build the catalogue, describes what this means in practical terms. More people than ever are listening to underwater microphones along the coast, either through live-streaming feeds or through acoustic instruments placed on the seafloor. Before this catalogue existed, those recordings could confirm that killer whales were present. Now they can say much more: which of the three Pacific ecotypes—resident, Bigg's, or offshore—is vocalizing; which clan within that ecotype; and, for resident populations, which specific pod. That level of detail matters for conservation. It allows researchers to track how whales move in response to food availability, to identify which areas are critical habitat at different times of year, and to measure whether noise disturbance is changing their behavior.
The catalogue works because killer whales have what amounts to vocal fingerprints. Each ecotype has its own distinct call repertoire. Within ecotypes, clans—groups that share a common dialect—have calls that are completely different from other clans in the same population. Ford uses a striking comparison: the dialects of Northern Resident clans are as different from each other as Mandarin is from Swahili. There is no overlap, no shared vocabulary, even though the whales live in the same waters and belong to the same population. Even within a clan, individual pods have variations in how they produce calls, adding another layer of specificity to the acoustic record.
Beyond simple identification, the catalogue captures something subtler: the texture of how whales make their calls. A call that is shorter and higher-pitched can signal excitement—much the way humans tend to speak faster and raise their voices when they are animated. With practice, Ford says, someone listening to a recording can begin to read the emotional or behavioral state of the whale making the sound. This opens a door to understanding not just who is vocalizing, but what they might be doing or feeling when they do.
Ruth Joy, the principal investigator on the HALLO team, is careful about what the catalogue can and cannot do. It is not a Rosetta stone for whale language. But by tying specific calls to specific whales and populations, it creates a foundation for the harder work ahead: figuring out what those calls actually mean. The killer whale brain is fundamentally different from the human brain, with vast neural real estate devoted to processing sound. The way whales encode and transmit information through vocalization is likely alien to human language. The catalogue does not solve that mystery, but it gives researchers a precise tool to ask better questions about it—to correlate particular calls with particular activities, to see patterns in how different populations communicate, and to understand how external pressures like noise pollution might be disrupting those patterns. For a species that relies almost entirely on sound to navigate, hunt, and stay connected to its family, that kind of acoustic literacy could prove essential.
Notable Quotes
With this catalogue, recordings can tell us which ecotype it is, which clan or subclan, and which pod it is. It's incredibly valuable for conservation.— John Ford, Fisheries and Oceans Canada
The killer whale brain is so different from ours, and a huge part of their brain is dedicated to acoustic processing of sound. We're trying to get closer to tying particular calls to specific activities.— Ruth Joy, HALLO project principal investigator
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