About this data
Acknowledgments & sources
Sightings come from Acartia
(CC BY 4.0) and iNaturalist.
Each sighting names its original contributor; photographs remain the copyright of
their photographers and are shown only where the photographer's licence permits,
with their credit attached.
How this map changes the data
This map modifies the source data. Reports from the two sources
that appear to describe the same animals are merged into a single marker.
Killer-whale ecotype labels (Bigg's, Southern Resident) are inferred by
this site — from the wording of the observer's description,
sometimes using an automated language model — and are not
part of the original report unless the observer said so. Treat them as a hint,
not a determination. On the map, an inferred label is marked
"(inferred)" when a keyword match made the call, or "(AI-inferred)" when a
language model did; when a merge between the two sources was confirmed by the
model, the popup says "match confirmed by AI".
Automated processing
To merge duplicate reports and infer ecotypes, this site sends parts of some
reports — the observer's written description, species, count, coordinates,
timestamp, and contributor name — to Anthropic's Claude API. Only
killer-whale reports that actually contain a written description are ever sent
for ecotype reading; each report or pair is sent at most once, ever; and the AI
only reads — nothing here trains any model, and Anthropic does not
train on these API inputs. The observers' words are always displayed verbatim;
the AI's conclusions are labelled as this site's inferences, never as the
observer's.
Location accuracy
Positions for threatened species are deliberately obscured by iNaturalist before
this map ever receives them, and may be inaccurate by tens of kilometres.
Markers for these records are drawn with a dashed outline instead of a solid one,
and their popup notes: "Location obscured to protect this species — true
position may differ by tens of kilometres."
Not for navigation
This map must not be used for navigation or for any purpose relating to safety
at sea. Its bathymetry derives from the GEBCO grid, whose licence expressly
excludes such use. It shows roughly the last 7 days, is not a scientific dataset,
and must not be used to approach or seek out marine mammals — follow the
Be Whale
Wise guidelines.
Map tile credits
Base map tiles are © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), © OpenTopoMap
(CC-BY-SA), and Powered by Esri (Esri, Vantor, Earthstar Geographics, GEBCO,
NOAA NGDC, Garmin, and other contributors).
Privacy
This site sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and collects nothing about you.
Map tiles, the mapping library, and photographs are loaded directly from
OpenStreetMap, Esri, OpenTopoMap, unpkg, iNaturalist, and Acartia, which will see
your IP address as your browser requests them.