Ping, You've Got Whale: AI detection system alerts ships of whales in their path

Summary

Led by Daniel Zitterbart, a biophysicist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, scientists have been testing this new AI-powered but human-verified whale detection system on ferries, research vessels, and cruise ships, and from land-based installations along the east and west coasts of North America, as well as in parts of the Southern Ocean. Since WhaleSpotter first got underway during research trials in 2019, its capabilities have grown tremendously. Across its more than two dozen ship- and land-based installations, the global WhaleSpotter network made more than 51,000 marine mammal detections in 2024, up from just 78 its first year. All of those detections were automatically sent to a remote data center in real time, but only a few ships have opted in to receiving the 24/7 alerts.But those ships are modestly sized. And in the quest to save whales from deadly collisions, one of the greatest challenges is protecting them from some of the biggest—and most common—vessels at sea: container ships. Strikes from container ships, which are massive and hard to maneuver, are one of the leading causes of death for large whales, according to Zitterbart. Peering out from a cargo ship’s bridge high above the waves, especially at night or in fog, a captain may struggle to see a whale soon enough to shift the course of the vessel, which can easily be 250 meters (800 feet) long. That’s why Zitterbart’s team recently began a research partnership with the Hawai‘i-based Matson Navigation Company to start adapting WhaleSpotter’s technology for this key class of vessels. Tailoring WhaleSpotter to work on container ships has required special considerations. Slower and harder to turn, container ships need more advance notice than other craft. However, container ships also tower over the ocean. Making use of the higher vantage point, Zitterbart and his team have been able to increase the distance at which their system can reliably spot whales. Testing longer-range camer...