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.
On this page
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.
Summary map
How to use Whale Insight
Version history
Whale Insight is periodically updated with new features and software patches. Detailed patch notes for Whale Insight (version 2.0 and above) are available to view and are updated with each new release.
Version 2.0.1
Whale Insight is periodically updated to enhance functionality and ensure continued reliability. This section provides detailed notes on new features and improvements introduced in version 2.0.1. Updates are documented with each release.
Summary map:
- Visual and acoustic detections now use different symbols (circle and triangle), and acoustic detections are no longer classified as possible or definite.
- Detections are now color-coded and ordered into one of three chronological layers (Past 24 hours, Past 1 to 3 days, and Past 3 to 14 days) based on the date and time the detection was made.
- Improved legend look and feel.
- The measure tool has been moved to the left side of the map, underneath the “Home” widget.
- The scale bar can now be moved anywhere on the map by clicking and dragging it with your cursor.
Advanced map:
- The advanced map is now accessible on mobile devices, allowing users to explore detections and filters on smartphones and tablets.
- Disclaimer window at website entry has been reduced in size, with the full list of disclaimers now migrated to the Whale Insight landing page.
- Definite and possible visual and acoustic detections are represented by different colours.
- A whale animation now plays when the website is refreshing.
- Widget icons have been migrated to the header ribbon and are no longer in the map interface.
- Users with the appropriate permissions can now log into Whale Insight directly, additional data and functionalities will now appear within the same application window.
- The new “Fishing Prohibitions to Protect North Atlantic Right Whales” (or “FishPro”) dashboard can be accessed by a button in the header ribbon.
- New query range across years function added to date filter enables querying detections across the same date range of multiple years.
- Platform names are nested with platform type in the filter ribbon. The user can now select one or more specific detection platform within a platform type using the drop-down arrow.
- For large queries, the track lines layer will automatically become hidden to preserve performance and can be manually re-enabled.
- New apply and reset buttons at the bottom of the filter ribbon to initiate a query. To view the results of a query, user must click on the “apply” button. To reset the filter selections, the user must click on the “reset” button.
- New applied filters tab at the top of the filter ribbon summarizes the selected values for each filter category of your most recent query, updating automatically once the apply button is clicked.
- New measurement widget tool to obtain the size of an area on the map or the distance covered by a line.
- The scale bar can now be moved anywhere on the map by clicking and dragging it with your cursor.
- New tool to instantly count detections in predefined polygons such as the restricted area, critical habitats, and more.
- New Viking buoy “heartbeat” histogram displays when the buoy is online (red line) alongside detection activity by date.
- Fixed minor bugs affecting visibility of glider and boy icons.
- Improved bar charts by merging effort and detection data into a single chart, now with zoom functionality for easier exploration.
- Added new quick metrics to display, at a glance, the minimum number of visual and acoustic platforms on effort during a selected time period.
- Updated and improved the user guide.
- Added version history.
Contact us
For technical issues, questions, or comments, please contact: DFO.WhaleInsight-BaleineEnVue.MPO@dfo-mpo.gc.ca
Report a marine mammal incident or sighting
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