"SANTA BARBARA — The taut rope that was lowering an underwater listening station to the ocean’s floor collapsed on the tug boat’s deck with a slap, signaling to the crew on board that their mission was complete.

They had successfully deployed a sound system in the Santa Barbara Channel.

The device could capture whale calls as far as 30 miles away. Cables connected the listening station — about 600 feet below sea level — to a buoy floating on the surface, which would transmit audio frequencies by satellite to scientists on shore.

The effort in early August was the latest attempt to prevent ships from running into whales in the channel, where large commercial boats coming in and out of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach cross paths with the feeding grounds of endangered blue, fin and humpback whales."

Leila Miller reports for the Los Angeles Times August 16, 2019. [2]