https://archive.md/xVRdV
"ON MARCH 3rd a whale calf washed ashore in Georgia, on America’s east coast,
bearing slash marks characteristic of a ship’s propeller. Less than a month
later another whale, a recent mother, was found floating off the coast of
Virginia. Her back was broken from the blunt-force trauma of a ship collision;
her calf, missing and still meant to be nursing, is not expected to live. Three
deaths within weeks is not good news for the North Atlantic right whales, of
which only about 360 remain.
They are dying mainly because of human activity, and they are not alone. Ship
collisions threaten whale populations worldwide, killing up to 20,000
individuals annually. With global ocean traffic forecast to rise by at least
240% by 2050, the problem will balloon. But a new movement is using technology
to fight back. On April 11th a Californian strike-prevention programme expanded
operations across North American waters. Other countries are following suit.
Whale Safe launched in 2020, two years after the number of whales killed by
collisions in California reached a record high of 14. Callie Leiphardt, the
scientist leading the project at the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory, says
that for every killed whale found, ten more are thought to die unrecorded. That
so many were dying despite voluntary speed limits suggested more robust
interventions were needed. The team reasoned that by alerting ships to whales,
and publicising which shipping companies ignored the speed limit, they might
increase compliance and bring down deaths.
Their approach rests on listening for whales underwater using
microphone-equipped buoys capable of separating low-frequency whale calls from
the ocean’s background noise. Vetted detections are then fed into Whale Safe’s
alert tool, alongside sightings and model-based predictions, to tell nearby
skippers to slow down. The team then monitors ships’ speeds within established
slow zones via a widespread GPS-tracking system and awards parent companies
marks from A to F, visible online. With this week’s expansion to the east
coast, Whale Safe will now assess companies across all slow-speed zones in
North America."
Via David Byrne at
Reasons to be Cheerful:
<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/what-were-reading-mapping-nature-fighting-wildfires/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
