Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) is working with a range of partners to establish a new West Coast Distributed Biological Observatory (WCDBO) in British Columbia, to monitor marine conditions from south Vancouver Island through the inside passage, to Prince Rupert.
The project aims to bring people together—governments and academic researchers, First Nations, non-profits, ports, and coastal communities—to collect and share data that will enhance knowledge and inform decision making for marine stewardship of these biologically diverse and culturally important coastal ecosystems.
How a Distributed Biological Observatory works
The emerging WCDBO was launched in 2024 as a collaborative pilot. It was inspired by an existing Distributed Biological Observatory (DBO) program in the Pacific Arctic, an international collaboration—including Canadian federal and university departments—that has tracked ecosystem changes resulting from dramatic sea-ice decline and ocean warming since 2010.
Similarly, by establishing key sampling stations that can be revisited by many different partners—including community-operated vessels and research ships—the WCDBO creates a simple but powerful way to combine everyone’s observations into a coherent coastal time-series. This makes it possible for local knowledge holders, scientists, and agencies to collectively track how the ocean is changing and to co-create and share that knowledge widely.
“The goal is to create an “ocean change detection array”, that is a coast-wide, inclusive, and standardized observing system capable of tracking biological and biogeochemical change while supporting Indigenous leadership in marine stewardship. The aim is to foster knowledge co-production and sharing across academia, industry and governance organizations.” ONC director of science, Kohen Bauer.
This map shows the sampling sites for the WCDBO, which were sampled multiple times, across 5 different cruises between September 2024-November 2025. Stations can develop and evolve based on partner input and feedback.
Testing the waters - pilot cruises and community engagement
In its first phase (Sept. 2024–Nov. 2025), the WCDBO collaborative program completed five successful pilot cruises aboard the Arctic Research Foundation (ARF)-operated research vessel (R/V) Tiriarnaq. These missions produced multidisciplinary baseline data and were conducted in partnership with Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), whose scientific and logistical support were essential throughout.
By coordinating operations with DFO’s ongoing cetacean survey program in the Prince Rupert region, the WCDBO increased observational efficiency through collaborative, multi-mission ecosystem monitoring. Across the voyages, the team collected key ocean measurements—including temperature, salinity, oxygen, chlorophyll, and nutrients—at more than 13 sites between Victoria and Prince Rupert.
Over the same time period, the program also engaged with 12 of the First Nations on the BC coast, through both in-person community visits and virtual information sessions, to provide the space to learn about the WCDBO, hear about local priorities, and help shape the sampling plan.
A long-time proponent of the WCDBO is Eddy Carmack, emeritus senior research scientist, oceanography, at the Institute of Ocean Sciences, and a current ONC Ocean Observatory Council board member. He says the human connection of the observatory is as equally important as the data.
"Threats to true resilience in our coastal ocean systems have never been greater. True resilience must bridge scales, boundaries, ecological regimes, and shared values; it must grow through respect, trust, cooperation, and conversation. The WCDBO is a scientific inquiry founded on these principles: it is the beginning of a deep conversation with nature."
Currently, the WCDBO collaborative program is engaging with partners coast-wide to apply for funding to sustain the monitoring in 2026 and beyond, and the program is open to new collaborations. Data from the pilot cruises are openly available on this geospatial map in ONC’s data management portal, Oceans 3.0.
Header image: Jane Wilson, Chief Mate of the R/V Tiriarnaq and Miranda Herle, ONC junior project engineer (EIT) preparing the CTD rosette for deployment.
