| Summary: | The Enhancing Cetacean Habitat and Observation (ECHO) program is a Port Metro Vancouver led collaborative initiative aimed at better understanding and managing the cumulative impact of commercial vessel activities on at-risk whales throughout the southern coast of British Columbia. Some of the key threats to whales in this region include: acoustic disturbance (underwater noise), physical disturbance (ship collisions), environmental contaminants, and the availability of prey. With the benefit of early input and advice from both Canadian and US scientists, shipping and marine transportation industries, conservation and environmental groups, First Nations individuals and government agencies, the ECHO Program is advancing a series of individual short-term projects, scientific studies and educational initiatives to achieve the Program’s long-term goal of developing mitigation and management options that will lead to a quantifiable reduction in vessel-related threats to whales. This presentation will introduce some of the initiatives and projects that are being advanced by the ECHO Program and will describe how the Program is bringing relevant interests together to explore innovative ways to better understand and manage regional cumulative impacts from commercial vessel activities. A number of ECHO-related projects, and work being conducted by our partners and advisors will be further highlighted in associated presentations within this session. Such presentations may include: JASCO’s development of a regional cumulative noise model; ONC and JASCO’s development of hardware for a marine acoustic system in the shipping lane and automated detection, classification, ship source level and ambient noise reporting software; BC and Washington State Ferries cross-border collaborative approach to managing impacts to whales; Vancouver Aquarium’s development of a Mariners guide to whales for the West Coast; DFO and Ocean Sonics Whale tracking Network; NOAA’s work on measurement of contaminant levels in SRKW and, DFO’s assessment ...
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