Conserving orcas with acoustic AI
There are only 75 Southern Resident Killer Whales (SKRWs) living in Puget Sound as of December 2025. They share their waters with boats and ships near the port cities of the Pacific Northwest. These vessels contribute to underwater noise that hinders the whales’ ability to echolocate and find fish to eat; especially the salmon they prefer.
Our goal is to create a sustainable co-existence for SRKWs and human activities across their range, from California to Alaska.
About AI for orcas
We are expanding a network of underwater microphones, known as hydrophones, that we hope will soon span the whales’ territory along the west coast of North America. With the bioacoustic data collected from the hydrophone network, we develop machine learning models to detect signals made by killer whales (calls, clicks, and whistles) in real-time. Artificial intelligence increases our capacity to detect whale signals by allowing a handful of experts to focus their attention on locations where whales are likely to be present. View our projects >
OrcaHello
When orcas call, we’re listening. OrcaHello is an AI-powered call listening system that makes round-the-clock acoustic monitoring of Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKW) practical for the first time in the Puget Sound. What once required a team stationed at hydrophones around the clock now takes experts less than 10 minutes per day – enabling 24/7 coverage of 7 locations. Operating since September 2020, OrcaHello has picked up confirmed calls on over 120 days – notifying conservation partners coordinating vessel slow-downs and construction activities. Originally developed by Microsoft volunteers through an AI for Earth innovation grant and now maintained by Orcasound, OrcaHello is completely open-source.
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Orcasound
Orcasound was created over 20 years ago with the goal of helping expand the hydrophone network in Washington and organize the open development of new bioacoustic solutions. It is a cooperative network of underwater “hydrophones” and an open-source software/hardware project – that enables citizen scientists to listen and report live. It also provides the infrastructure that powers OrcaHello and other conservation applications. As of 2025, 19 NGOs cooperate through Orcasound, streaming live audio from 7 hydrophone locations in orca habitat, and 100s of contributors building open, free software and hardware for bioacoustics.
Learn more > or Listen here >