Sightings Network
When you report sightings, large ships in your area are immediately alerted so they can take measures to avoid a ship strike or disturbance.
7,300
Coastal community members who regularly report sightings.
75,000+
Whale Alerts sent to commercial vessels.
320,000+
Sighting reports in the past 20 years.
Send a Sighting, Save a Whale!
How Sightings are Used
When you submit a whale sighting, you help protect whales in two vital ways. Sightings submitted in real time are transmitted to authorized commercial ships, prompting them to slow down or alter course—reducing the risk of striking or disturbing marine life. Plus, each sighting is reviewed and added to a research database, helping scientists monitor species occurrence and distribution over time, contributing to important conservation research.
Quick Links
When you report sightings, large ships in your area are immediately alerted so they can take measures to avoid a ship strike or disturbance.
Want to know how the Whale Report Alert System (WRAS) works? Who has access? How you can report sightings without cell service? Check out this FAQ.
Privacy Policy, Terms, and Conditions for the Whale Report Alert System.
About the Ocean Wise Sightings Network
As one of the longest-standing and most successful citizen science programs in Canada, the BC Cetacean Sightings Network has gathered whale sighting reports from volunteer observers of diverse backgrounds for over 22 years. In 2023, recognizing our expansion to new geographies, we changed the name of the program to the Ocean Wise Sightings Network (OWSN). We continue our work in BC, but also across Canada and around the globe.
The beauty of the OWSN is that by employing a variety of outreach events, community members are encouraged to contribute to our conservation efforts and report their sightings. This data plays an integral role in various conservation projects concerning whale health and monitoring, and can be useful in identifying critical habitat, developing species-specific recovery strategies, and implementing regulations related to cetaceans and harmful human activities.
Individual sighting reports are also relayed in real-time to Ocean Wise’s Whale Report Alert System (WRAS), a tool developed for captains of large commercial vessels (e.g., ferries, tugs, and freighters) to alert them of the presence of whales.
