Robots help whales escape danger
For the first time, two torpedo-shaped robots from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Massachusetts, were used to detect 9 North Atlantic right whales. The six-foot-long robots used digital acoustic monitoring equipment to detect the whales in the Gulf of Maine, the first time baleen whales have ever been detected using this type of technology.
"Recording the sound creates a spectrogram, which to a scientist is almost like a sheet of music that visually represents the sounds you're hearing," explained WHOI researcher Mark Baumgartner.
Similar 'listening buoys' are already in use, he adds, and whilst these "work fantastically," they are moored in one place, whereas the robots, or 'gliders' can work at sea for four to five weeks at a time before they need to be recharged. The gliders also have the potential to be used to detect other marine creatures as well as whales. Though they are currently able to detect right, humpback, fin and sei whales, they could be equipped with new sounds and species.
Furthermore, the gliders not only detect sounds but also record temperature and salinity, and estimate algae populations.
"They even have an instrument that gives us a crude sense of how much of the zooplankton that right whales feed on is in the area," Baumgartner said. "So they have an enormous capacity to help us understand not only where the whales are, but why they are there."
As well as aiding research the gliders have implications for conservation, as shipping traffic can avoid the mammals once they have been detected. Baumgartner says:
"We can use this information to very quickly draw a circle on the map and say, hey, we know there are whales in this area, let's be careful about our activities here. The government can then alert mariners and ask them to reduce their speed and post a lookout."
Ship collisions pose a major problem to the critically endangered right whale, reportedly accounting for around a third of all known deaths. The species has been slow to recover from the devastation of whaling, with less than 500 right whales remaining. Each animal's survival is crucial to the future of the species, biologists say.
The Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) is inviting applications from veterinary students to attend a one-week extramural studies (EMS) placement in July 2026.
