Watch Chatty Beluga Families Migrate With These Stunning Live Cams in Canada

Here’s a summer “staycation” idea: From the comfort of your own home, you can watch—and listen to—tens of thousands of beluga whales as they make their annual migration to Hudson Bay and the Churchill River in Canada.

Polar Bears International and Explore.org are once again offering their popular beluga whale live cams, which capture these chatty, melon-headed marine mammals in all their glory. The live streams launched Monday on Arctic Sea Ice Day—a holiday that aims to promote awareness about the importance of sea ice, which is declining amid human-caused climate change. Hudson Bay saw record low levels of sea ice this spring.

From now through late August, scientists aboard a special “beluga boat” named Delphi will be exploring the Churchill River. For roughly four hours daily, Monday through Friday, they’ll capture video footage and sound recordings of belugas as they swim, communicate, raise their young and enjoy the relative safety from predators like orcas.

The vessel is equipped with two cameras—one that’s underwater and one that’s located on-deck—to offer different perspectives of the belugas’ summer vacation destination. The ship also has a hydrophone to record the belugas’ various chirps, whistles, squeaks and other sounds that have earned them the nickname “canaries of the sea.”

“You’ll see all these family pods swimming amongst each other,” says Alysa McCall, staff scientist and director of conservation outreach for Polar Bears International, to Popular Science’s Laura Baisas. “They like to follow the boat in the wake. We go super slow, and the belugas will just kind of tag along, and they like to go in front of a camera. They bring their babies up to the camera and they just talk all day.”

Beluga Boat Underwater | 2023 Highlights

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Even when the live streams aren’t rolling, you can still watch archival footage of these sleek swimmers—including highlight reels from years past.

Belugas (Delphinapterus leucas) are long, slender toothed whales with bulbous foreheads called melons that scientists say are used to communicate. They can grow up to 16 feet long and weigh 3,150 pounds, on average. Instead of a dorsal fin, belugas have a dorsal ridge, which allows them to swim under sheets of floating sea ice with ease—an adaptation that helps them hide from orca predators. (Their genus, Delphinapterus, means “dolphin without a fin,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.)

For much of the year, belugas live in Arctic and sub-Arctic waters near Alaska, Greenland, Canada and Russia, where a thick layer of blubber helps them stay warm. In the summer, these social animals typically migrate to shallower coastal waters to give birth, feed, shed their dead skin and socialize.

Beluga Boat Cam - Underwater Cam powered by EXPLORE.org

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In Canada, this means many beluga whales take refuge in the Churchill River, which feeds into Hudson Bay near Churchill, Manitoba. Of the roughly 150,000 beluga whales in the world, an estimated 57,000 individuals spend summers there.

“Their summer migration, it’s kind of like their vacation season in a way,” McCall says to CTV News’ Devon McKendrick. “So, they’ll head back up north later in the summer, early fall and we won’t see them again until next year.”

Beluga Boat Underwater | Highlight Reel 2022

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Coincidentally, summer is also the time when polar bears are stuck on land, waiting for temperatures to drop and sea ice to re-form so they can hunt for their favorite food: seals. As you watch the beluga cams, you may get lucky and catch a glimpse of a polar bear, too.

“Occasionally, a bear might try its hand, or paw, at beluga hunting, though it’s rarely successful,” McCall tells BBC Wildlife’s Graeme Green.

Polar bears aside, the cameras have also captured other critters in the river, including capelin fish, melon comb jellies and common northern comb jellies.

“Over the years, we’ve learned that wildlife cams in Churchill are always full of surprises,” McCall adds to BBC Wildlife.

Sarah Kuta | READ MORE

Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.