If you truly want to understand the world that whales live in, you need to listen! That is why hydrophone technology has become one of the most important tools we can use to research the communication and habitat use of whales worldwide.
A hydrophone is an extremely sensitive underwater microphone that connects us to the underwater world of whales. Hydrophone installations are not an easy task especially in the remote areas that are essential to most projects. You need to find a location that is safe for the hydrophone, which is connected to an 80-pound (36 kg) cement block and secured by qualified divers 60 to 100 feet (20 to 30 metres) deep. It needs to be close enough to shore to enable us to connect the hydrophone to a cable that will follow the intertidal zone to shore and then connect to a land-based transmitter that is powered by solar panels and a battery bank. These are a lot of pieces that need to connect properly and be powered completely off-grid on rocky shorelines where it rains most of the time.
