Scientists bet on AI to save gray whales from ship strikes off California coast
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The leading killer of gray whales is not natural causes, disease or predators but human-made ship strikes.Last year, 21 gray whales were found dead around San Francisco Bay and 40% of those were from ship collisions.
This year, seven whales have already died during whale season, which peaks this month.As climate change alters the food chain in the Arctic, more and more gray whales are moving into San Francisco Bay in search of food, putting them in harm’s way.
Now, there’s a thermal camera monitoring system that tracks the location of whales using AI and then alerts nearby ships to re-route their course in order to avoid hitting them.“It is heartbreaking to see these starving whales stumbling around in the middle of the hustle and bustle of San Francisco Bay,” Douglas McCauley, director of the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory at UC Santa Barbara, said in a news release from the lab.
“Every day is a nail-biter.But what gives me hope is seeing how all the right partners in the Bay Area community have come together to do something.
This new system will save whales’ lives.We are all proud of this.”The system uses Flir thermal cameras and AI-powered detection technology developed by WhaleSpotter to detect the whales’ heat signature from up to four nautical miles, according to the release.
Scientists then put the locations on the Whale Safe website to share with bay mariners and the U.S.Coast Guard.
There are between 11,700 and 14,450 Eastern North Pacific gray whales worldwide, which is about half the population of about 27,000 that were around in 2016, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.The current population is the lowest ever recorded since the late 1960s and ‘70s.
According to a study published in April, about 18% of the gray whales in the bay between 2018 and 2025 died, with at least 40% of them killed by ship strikes.La...