A Cape Cod science center and one of the world's largest shipping businesses are collaborating on a project to use robotic buoys to protect a vanishing whale.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute developed a technology that records whale sounds in real time. Mark Baumgartner, a marine ecologist with Woods Hole whose lab also operates the buoys, said that the robotic recorders give scientists, mariners and the public an idea of the location of rare North Atlantic right whales.
One of the biggest threats to the existence of the whales is ship strikes, as they travel through some of the busiest stretches of ocean on the planet. The French shipping giant is working with Woods Hole to deploy two robotic buoys off of Virginia and Georgia.
The data collected by six others off the East Coast will be added to by the deployment of the buoys. He said that the two new buoys could be put to use soon.
When whales are around, we have to change our industrial practices. The best way to have solutions that will actually be implemented is to have the industry tell us what works and what doesn't.
Commercial whaling decimated the whales off the East Coast. They are vulnerable to ship accidents and fishing gear problems. They have dwindled in population due to high mortality and poor reproduction.
The whales are aided by a network of protected areas. Scientists are concerned that whales are straying outside of protected areas in search of food as the waters warm. That has made them more vulnerable.
The company chose to locate the buoys off the Virginia city and the Georgia port because they are among the busiest in the United States. Ed Aldridge, president of the company, said it was an effort to share the ocean with marine mammals and protect them from extinction.
Heather Wood said that the company is paying for the construction, maintenance and operation of the buoy for three years. The cost of the project was not disclosed by the company. Wood said it hopes to build a group of shippers that use this kind of technology to protect whales.
She said it was an investment in the future of the seas and the right whale.
The buoys that provide sound in near real time are a relatively recent invention, but acoustic recorders have tracked whale sounds for decades. He said that the data can be made available every couple of hours.
The results are used by federal authorities to help make decisions about when to announce the right whale slow zones, which call on vessel operators to slow down to 10 knots or less.
The data allows us to send information to mariners quickly so they can take action to reduce the risk of vessel strike, which is one of the largest threats to this population.
The data collected by the robotic buoys is used by academics. Callie Steffen, a project scientist with Whale Safe in Santa Barbara, California, said that they are used on the West Coast to help protect blue, fin and humpback whales.
We hope shipping companies will integrate this.
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