This AI Aims to Prevent the Death of Endangered Whales From Ship Collisions

Joaquin Victor Tacla, Tech Times 27 September 2022, 06:09 am

One of the primary causes of death for endangered whales is collisions with ships since they migrate, breed, and travel through deep passages in the same congested waters that cargo ships use.

Whales that live close to the surface, like humpbacks and right whales, are particularly vulnerable. According to a 2019 study, their condition is comparable to land animals driven to traverse the roads that pass through their ecosystems. They claim that whales are turning into ocean roadkill.

But with artificial intelligence, the 2020-launched Whale Safe project, funded by Salesforce co-founder and tech billionaire Marc Benioff, seeks to solve this problem, as reported first by The Guardian.

AI for Whales

The AI system gives close to real-time information on the number of whales in the vicinity and informs shipping operators to slow down their vessels when whales are nearby.

Jeff Boehm, chief external relations officer of the Marine Mammal Center, said in a news release last week that this project is a good example of how tech connects with mother nature for the "benefit of marine life."

The Whale Safe system employs buoys mounted with microphones to hear whales and provide a "whale presence rating" ranging from low to high.

Additionally, it will produce shipping companies' performance evaluations based on their voluntary speed decreases in whale-active areas. According to the project's team, slowing down is the most important thing ships can do to prevent deadly crashes.

The system has been in use in the Santa Barbara area, which has one of the shipping channels serving the largest ports on the west coast and is currently extending northward into the San Francisco Bay area, which is also a significant port region for international cargo ships, according to The Guardian.

The project claimed that there were no observed whale-ship contacts in the area during the system's first full year of operation close to Santa Barbara.

Not a Panacea

According to marine biologists, the project is a positive move, but it is not a panacea for solving the fundamental problem of whales and ships.

Senior research biologist and Cascadia Research Collective founder John Calambokidis told The Guardian that he supports the Whale Safe initiative because it draws attention to this significant threat to whales.

Calambokidis doesn't believe it will amount to a solution until more steps are taken, like requiring speed limits for ships and relocating shipping channels away from whale migration routes.

While the technology can detect the existence of whales, Calambokidis claimed that it is unable to provide specifics like their location, direction of travel, or number.

The Guardian noted that blue whale cries can be heard for tens of kilometers and males call more frequently when they are moving. It would be challenging to detect some whales because they generate very little or no noise at all.

According to Calambokidis, the absence of sound does not necessarily indicate the absence of whales. Instead, it requires acoustic interpretation.

Additionally, the models that Calambokidis helped develop over decades of research and that artificial intelligence is taught said that they are not very effective at predicting whale occurrence at the scale of shipping routes.

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Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla