Tap the app store icon and the Search for ‘WRAS Pilot’

Tap the play store icon and search for ‘WRAS Pilot’

Select “Sign Up” and provide an email and password. A professional email address is preferred over a personal one, as it makes it easier for the WRAS administrators to verify your identity as a marine professional.

The WRAS Administrative Team will review your request for access in 1-2 business days and will send you an email once your account has been activated.

Once you have received the activation email, you can access the WRAS by entering your email and password on the “Log In” page.

Please ensure you set location services to “Always” when prompted and allow the app to access your motion and fitness data. This will allow the app to send you an SMS text message when a reported whale is within 10 nautical miles of your location.

For each trip, you will enter the name of the vessel from which you are transmitting. Enter a boat name and then tap the Transmit location button.

Tapping the Transmit location button will start the process of sending the location to the server. You will be able to view a coast-wide map of sightings. In the top right hand corner, there is a drop down menu that will allow you to view sighting alerts submitted within the past 3 hours, 12 hours, and 24 hours.

Alerts are colour coded by species. The species legend is in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.

Your location is indicated by the small blue icon. The icon will flash when you are transmitting your location. Your position will be polled every 5 minutes and your location accuracy will be displayed at the top of the map (in metres).

Hovering over or clicking the icon will allow you to view more details (species, time of reported sighting, number of animals, coordinates, and direction of travel).

Sighting alerts that have been reported in a similar area (e.g. multiple whale watching boats reporting the same group of whales) will be clustered on the map. These clusters will be dark blue, surrounded by a grey aura. Zooming in on the area will allow you to view these sighting alerts individually.

Any sighting alert that is less than 30 minutes old will have an orange aura around it. These newer sightings will not be entered into a cluster of reports in a similar area until they are over 30 minutes old. Refer to the legend describing the alert marker (bottom right).

As you move into an area (within 10 nm) where there is an active alert, or if a report is generated by an observer which falls within 10 nm of your location, an SMS text message will be generated and sent to your device. The SMS message contains pertinent sighting information and prompts you to open the WRAS app to view a map that shows the reported sighting.

You can identify the alert received on the map using the ID that is sent with the SMS (circled in red).

The message will be presented in different forms depending on the operating system of the device. The ID matches the ID of the icon shown on the map (for example, A12)

Species, Direction (if reported), and Latitude/Longitude (in decimal degrees) will also be in the message.

Direction will be reported as “V” if the animal(s) appears to be moving in various directions, and “?” if the direction of travel is unknown.

Stop transmitting

Tapping the Stop Transmitting button will immediately stop the phone transmitting its location to the server and will take you to the feedback page.

Send feedback list

On this page there is a list of alerts received.

Tapping the yellow Feedback button will take you to the feedback form for the selected alert. Tapping the red x icon will cause the feedback item to be deleted after confirming.

At the end of your shift, we would so appreciate it if you could take the time to submit feedback on both the functionality and the utility of the WRAS. At any time, you may also email comments to [email protected].

In the comments section, please describe:

The alert map can be accessed directly on your web browser using following URL: WRAS: Whale Report Alert System

Login using your email and password, provided in the email (the same credentials used to log in to the app).

As with the WRAS mobile app, alerts are displayed as icons. Hovering over or clicking the icon will allow you to view more details (species, time of reported sighting, number of animals, coordinates, and direction of travel. A legend of species marker colours is on the bottom left-hand side of the screen.

Users have the ability to set the view to alerts in the last 3 hours, 12 hours or 24 hours by selecting the options on the top right-hand side of the screen. The current time is shown first.

Sighting alerts that have been reported in a similar area (e.g. multiple whale watching boats reporting the same group of whales) will be clustered on the map. These clusters will be dark blue, surrounded by a grey aura. Zooming in on the area will allow you to view these sighting alerts individually.

Any sighting alert that is less than 30 minutes old will have an orange aura around it. These newer sightings will not be entered into a cluster of reports in a similar area until they are over 30 minutes old. Refer to the legend describing the alert markers (bottom right).

The Desktop Interface is designed for users located in land-based Vessel Operations Centres and therefore it does not track your location. To receive alerts in only select area(s) of the BC/WA Coast, you can select your Zones of Interest by selecting or deselecting areas in the Preferences section.

When a whale is detected in your zone(s) of interest, you will receive an audible “ping” alert.

New alerts less than 30 minutes old will appear in the notifications list (right hand side of the screen). Clicking on the alert in the notifications list will centre the map on that specific alert.

Please contact the Project Manager:

Jessica Scott

O: 604-659-3770

C: 778-998-0223

[email protected]

Thank you for participating in the WhaleReport Alert System Project!