Fathom

Six underwater microphones in Puget Sound, streaming right now. When something calls, its pitch gets traced and compared against 700 real Southern Resident orca calls marked by experts. A high match means it sounds like those calls, not that it is one. There are 76 of these whales left.

Audio plays from the hydrophone you pick. About a minute behind real time.

Listening pick a hydrophone

0–12 kHz · newest on the right

Press Tune in to start the live spectrogram.

Pitch now–

Tonal strength–

Level–

Sounds caught0all hydrophones

Listening for0:000 frames analysed

Volume

Hydrophones from Orcasound

Pitch lab

Orcasound detections last 1,000 reports, people and OrcaHello's model

These are Orcasound's own reports. A person flagged it, or the OrcaHello model fired. Human notes often name what they heard.

The project

How it works

HearEach hydrophone streams 10-second chunks. Your browser decodes them, runs a 4,096-point spectrum about 47 times a second, and keeps a slowly rising noise floor so boats and wind fade into the background.

TraceA call opens when the same spectral peaks persist from frame to frame. Its pitch line is the strongest continuous harmonic path through the call, so it does not jump between harmonics.

CompareEach pitch line becomes 40 points in semitones and is matched to every reference call with dynamic time warping. 100 means the same shape at the same pitch. Matching shape is not proof of a call type yet.