Join the Beluga Whale Research Effort

Marine life researchers need your help with beluga whale research. They want you to watch their live stream and take screenshots during the summer migration.

The Great Beluga Journey

Each summer, more than 50,000 beluga whales travel to the Churchill River in Canada. This river flows into Hudson Bay. It's an amazing natural event that happens every year.

How Scientists Are Tracking These Whales

Scientists from Polar Bear International have a special beluga boat. This boat has a camera and microphone that capture everything. You can hear all the clicking, whistling, and singing of the whale pods through the live stream.

How You Can Help With Real Science

The boat's live stream is available online for anyone to watch. When you see a beluga whale, you can take a snapshot using the built-in camera tool on the website. These photos get uploaded to a gallery, and you can also share them in the live chat.

Why Your Screenshots Matter

Every photo you take has a time stamp. Combined with the boat's GPS location, these photos help researchers track individual whales over time. This information is very valuable for science.

Your screenshots help researchers learn about:

• Beluga whale social structures
• Their life history
• How they use their habitat

The images do even more than track whales. They also help scientists check water quality and monitor other sea creatures like jellyfish.

How to Join the Beluga Watch

To join this citizen science project, visit the Explore.org page for the live stream. There, you'll find a detailed pinned comment with all the dates and times of the boat tours for the rest of the month.

Don't worry if you miss a boat tour. When tours aren't happening, the live stream shows highlights from previous tours.

The link to watch the belugas can be found in the caption. By taking just a few minutes to watch and snap photos, you can make a real contribution to whale research from anywhere in the world.