An aquarium and an engineering firm in Massachusetts are partnering on a project to better protect whales by monitoring them from space.
The New England Aquarium of Boston and Draper of Cambridge say whale conservation needs new, higher-tech solutions to protect whales from extinction.
So, the pair is working together using data from sources such as satellites, sonar and radar to keep a closer eye on how many whales are in the ocean.
The aquarium and firm are calling the project “Counting Whales From Space.”
That name is about the only simple thing about the project, said John Irvine, chief scientist for data analytics with Draper.
The work will involve gathering data from sources ranging from European space agencies to amateur radio operators to create a probability map of where in the ocean the whales might be, Irvine said.
Conservation groups will then be able to monitor whales and their movements, he said.
“If whales are moving out of one area and into another, what’s the reason for that? Is it due to ocean warming?” Irvine said. “Is it changes in commercial shipping lanes? These are all questions we’ll be able to start answering once we have the data.”
The partners have committed a combined US$1 million to the effort. The project is expected to develop over several years.
Aerial surveys are currently the most frequently used method to count whales, but that approach is expensive, subject to bad weather conditions and can be dangerous, partners on the project said.
Project members said the goal of their work is to develop new technology that uses specially designed algorithms to process all the data they acquire and use it to monitor whales.
Exactly what the final product could look like is a work in progress, Irvine said, but the goal is a “global watch on whale movement.”
The technology could potentially be used to monitor whales anywhere in the world’s oceans, but some of the most pressing need for monitoring is just off New England, New England Aquarium president Vikki Spruill said.
The region’s waters serve as a home to the endangered North Atlantic right whale, which numbers only about 400 and is declining in population.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
RSS