Whale Insight

Whale Insight is an interactive visualization tool that displays detections of North Atlantic right whales in eastern Canadian waters. These detections are either visually observed by aerial and at-sea surveillance, or recorded with acoustic technologies. Whale Insight collects these detections from a variety of partners and groups that undertake monitoring and surveillance activities in Canadian waters.

Users can view and explore North Atlantic right whale detections through two interfaces:

• The summary map displays detections from the past 14 days and allows users to see the latest detections at a glance. More information can be added by clicking the ‘Layers’ button on the top right-hand side of the map.
• The advanced map allows users to filter and browse whale detections in greater detail. Advanced search queries can be made by date, species, detection platform, and other data using the Filter Ribbon on the left side of the map. The quick metrics in the ‘Currently viewing’ tab on the right side of the map and the bar charts on the bottom of the screen provide additional information on detection events, which changes based on your map view and applied filters.

Advanced Whale Insight Map

On this page

• About Whale Insight
• Disclaimer
• Summary map
• How to use Whale Insight
• Version history
• Contact us

About Whale Insight

Since 2022, Whale Insight has partnered with researchers, policy makers, and communities throughout eastern Canada to support the Government of Canada’s efforts to monitor and protect the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale. Learn more about Whale Insight and how it works: About Whale Insight

Disclaimer

The maps and data contained in this application have been made available for information purposes only and should not be used for navigation or fishing.

The data contained in this application is collected and owned by various partner organizations. These data cannot be used for any purpose without explicit permission from these contributors. Images of this application and the map products therein are permitted with proper reference to the following citation:

Fisheries and Oceans Canada. 2025. Whale Insight. https://canada.ca/whale-insight-map.

The maps contained in this application display North Atlantic right whale detections in eastern Canadian waters since May 2017. Detections are typically displayed on the map within the same day they are reported. All detections have been validated by a marine mammal expert. The map is updated every 30 minutes.

These data are preliminary and are subject to change without notice. Reviews of associated imagery or metadata conducted by Fisheries and Oceans Canada or contributing partners may result in changes to detection metadata.

Survey effort has not been quantified. A lack of detections does not represent a lack of species presence in a particular area.

This application, and the near real-time detections displayed, focus on the North Atlantic right whale. Visual and acoustic detections of other large baleen whale species are displayed only if available in near real-time. Not all of the platforms included in this application focus or report on the same species. Differences in species representation on these maps is a reflection of platform diversity and effort.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada does not warrant the reliability, currency, positional or thematic accuracy of any data or information published in these maps. Misalignment of some datasets may occur due to the methods used to produce the original product. Fisheries and Oceans Canada assumes no responsibility for errors in the content of the provided information.

Under no circumstances will Fisheries and Oceans Canada be liable to any person or entity for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, consequential or other damages resulting from the use of data or information contained in these maps. This includes, without limitation, any lost profits or business interruption.

When accessing data or information, users may be directed to a non-government web service location. Data or information obtained from other web services may be subject to the particular source's license requirements and permissions.