Right whale #4550, a juvenile female born in 2015, photographed in Cape Cod Bay by the Center for Coastal Studies aerial survey team on January 6, 2020. CCS, NOAA permit #19315-1.
HYANNIS – Two passive sound collection programs are underway in the Gulf of Maine to help researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution learn more about North Atlantic Right Whales.
Using this data, boats can be notified of any whales in the area and can slow down in response to avoid collisions and help protect the endangered marine animals.
One program will use fixed microphones mounted on the bottom of the ocean floor and will be periodically checked for audio data collection.
The other program will use underwater gliders to record acoustic information and report back to researchers in near real time on the location of whales.
Right Whales have changed their historic migration patterns in recent times, increasing the need for a reliable tracking system that can monitor whales beneath the ocean’s surface where ship or plane-based survey teams cannot track them.
Researchers will deploy the ocean-floor microphones to 8 locations within 3 miles of shore around the Gulf and spend 1 year recording.
The real-time gliders have already begun operating within the Gulf as well as the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.
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