About This Project

Belugas are referred to as the canaries of the sea because of their vocal nature. I want to find out how their vocal ability develops by studying beluga calf vocalizations over the first year of a calf's life. Belugas play an important part in the health of marine ecosystems, but they are a near threatened species. Researching calf vocal development will help us to understand how belugas communicate, and which vocalizations are crucial to their survival.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Belugas are extremely vocal animals. The basis of what we know about beluga communication currently consists of what types of sounds belugas emit (e.g., pulsed, tonal, and combination of pulsed and tonal sounds). But, despite this understanding, we still do not know a lot about how their vocalizations are used in communication. Studying a calf's vocal development gives us a great place to start because it offers us the chance to study how belugas learn to communicate.

What is the significance of this project?

Learning how belugas communicate is crucial to our understanding of the species. Identifying and understanding the beluga call types that are critical to their survival puts researchers in a better position to understand the impact of human related noise on their communication systems. For example, beluga calves produce vocalizations that are not fully developed early on in life, which means that they may not have full motor control over their vocalizations. As scientists, it is important for us to know when calves develop full control over the vocalizations they produce. This may help us to identify the period in a calf’s life at which it can compensate for human-made shipping noise that masks vocalizations produced at a specific level.

What are the goals of the project?

This project aims to collect hydrophone (underwater microphone) recordings each day for the calf's first year of life, and then sporadically after the calf's first year. The goals are to determine if beluga vocal development is unique to each beluga calf (similar to how each human infant reaches language milestones a little differently). I would also like to determine information about how belugas use certain vocalizations (for example, when and why some vocalizations are produced). Helping us to understand this, will aid scientists in understanding which beluga vocalizations are critical to their survival.