Sydney Inlet Acoustic Refugium

With permission from Ahousaht's Maaqutusiis Hahoulthee Stewardship Society and collaboration with local researchers, the CBT coordinates an ongoing acoustic ecology project in a remote inlet in ʕaḥuusʔatḥ haḥuułii (Ahousaht territory). Acoustic ecology examines the sounds of an ecosystem to make inferences about the presence, activity, and relationships between different species (including humans) in an ecosystem.

The goal of the Sydney Inlet Acoustic Refugium Monitoring program is to increase awareness of both natural sounds (biophony, geophony) and human-made noise (anthrophony) and their intersection at important feeding habitats for at-risk marine mammals. Throughout this project, we are learning about the ecological significance of ‘quiet’ places, such as Sydney Inlet, that are rich in biophony and geophony and have very little human noise disturbance.