Data from: High diversity of killer whale populations revealed by passive acoustic monitoring in Gwaii Haanas, Haida Gwaii, northern British Columbia, Canada, with insights into seasonal occurrence
Data files
Jul 09, 2026 version files 1.81 MB
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Figure_S1_wav_files.zip
680.42 KB
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Figures_4_5_6_wav_files.zip
1.13 MB
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README.md
2.16 KB
Abstract
Marine waters of Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve, National Marine Conservation Area Reserve, and Haida Heritage Site (Gwaii Haanas) in southern Haida Gwaii, Canada, provide habitat for several killer whale (Orcinus orca) populations that are culturally important to the indigenous Haida Nation and listed under Canada's Species at Risk Act. Detailed information about these populations in Gwaii Haanas is limited by the area's remoteness and challenging conditions for boat-based surveys. We examined killer whale occurrence and seasonal presence inferre from distinctive vocalizations recorded during 14 year-long deployments of underwater passive acoustic monitoring recorders at three sites during 2009–2024. Six populations from three ecotypes were detected: Bigg's (West Coast Transient and Gulf of Alaska), Resident (Northern, Southern, and Southern Alaska), and Offshore killer whales. Multiple detections of Southern Alaska Residents plus three independent visual encounters off Haida Gwaii provide the first documentation of this population in Canadian waters. A detection of Southern Resident killer whales is also notable, as this endangered population is rarely observed north of Vancouver Island. Passive acoustic monitoring in Gwaii Haanas revealed the highest killer whale population diversity of any such monitoring site in the northeastern Pacific, encompassing all populations known from Southeast Alaska to northern California. Audio files used to create spectrograms illustrated in this article are included here.
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.mgqnk99fd
Description of the data and file structure
Each zip file contains the audio clips (as .wav files) for each killer whale vocalization used in the spectrogram figures in the manuscript (Figures 4, 5, 6, and Supplemental Figure S1). See details below.
Files and variables
File: Figure_S1_wav_files.zip
Description: This zip file contains the 6 (six) .wav files used to create the spectrograms of each of the 6 killer whale call types that could not be attributed to any known populations. These are the clips that were used to generate the spectrogram images for Figure S1. Each clip contains a single unique vocalization and are named according to their call type designation given in the manuscript, along with the letter of the corresponding panel in Figure S1 ("Figure S1(A) - call KWU01.wav", "Figure S1(B) - call KWU02.wav", etc).
File: Figures_4_5_6_wav_files.zip
Description: This zip file contains three (3) subfolders, each with two (2) .wav files. Each subfolder is named according to the corresponding figure in the manuscript ("Figure 4", "Figure 5", "Figure 6"). Each folder contains the two separate .wav files used to generate the spectrogram images of the calls for each panel in the corresponding figure in the manuscript. Each .wav file contains a single unique vocalization. The files are named according to the figure, the specific panel in the figure, the call type, and the origins. For example, in the Figure 4 subfolder, file "Figure 4(A) - call AKS16_Gowgaia.wav" is an AKS16 call recorded on the PAM instrument at Gowgaia in the current study, and file "Figure 4(A) - call AKS16_podAF.wav" is the reference clip of an AKS16 call type recorded in the presence of members from AF pod in the Southern Alaska Resident community for comparison, as described in the Figure 4 caption, as well as in the manuscript text.