The ocean is now listening to its own whales
the ocean is now listening to its own whales: guangxi scientists turned a seismometer into a marine stethoscope that hears endangered whale calls, orcahello listens around the clock and pauses construction when southern resident orcas pass, and a unsw model found blue whale songs after training on one sample.
the sea now keeps its own call log.
Context
Xinhua reported in June that scientists in Guangxi turned an island seismometer plus deep learning into a low-cost whale listening 'marine stethoscope'. A UNSW-led study found blue whale calls with almost 100 percent accuracy after training on only one sample song.
OrcaHello is an open-source system that listens around the clock for endangered Southern Resident killer whales across 7 locations in Puget Sound.
The Guangxi seismometer, the UNSW one-song result and OrcaHello's round-the-clock listening match the sources. Pausing construction when orcas pass was not seen in the excerpts read, so unsupported here, not refuted.
'The sea now keeps its own call log' is the author's opinion.
Related work
- Xinhua: seismometer turned into whale listening device ↗Guangxi project.
- UNSW: One whale song unlocks oceans of data ↗Blue whale detector.
- AI 4 Orcas: OrcaHello ↗Orca monitoring.
Watch next
- Check how OrcaHello alerts are used by operators.
Sources
- Xinhua, Jun 7, 2026english.news.cn
- UNSW Newsroom, Apr 2026unsw.edu.au
- AI 4 Orcas, OrcaHelloai4orcas.net
Provenance
The note above is reproduced unedited from the original post, first published on Threads on 3 October 2026 at 10:16 IST. Sources are the papers and datasets the note draws on.
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