Giving Wild Whales a Health Check
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| Ocean Alliance Snotbot at Sea of Cortez -lastest Whale expedition |
Giving Global population of Wild Whales a Health Check it today a reality made possible thanks to recent developments. Strangely enough this developments are not expensive and are effective and precise. In the past years most would have laughed on this issue. Whales health check were only possible post-mortem when they ashored dead on a coast. Today reports of Dead whales washing up on the beaches due to unknown causes have risen. For years some scientists have wondered what if we could give Wales a health check before they reached this inevitable situation. But how would one go about to check the health of a creature known as “the Giant of the Ocean”?
Drones are leading the way into new Whale research and can get up and close to Whales without harming them. Breaking International News of footage of whales and dolphins and other ocean life shot entirely on drones has been growing in the past years. This is mostly due to the rapid development of drones which are today more accessible and more reliable. But what happens when drones are put to the science flight?
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution WHOI, NOAA and Ocean Alliance SnotBot Project know more about this issue than perhaps any other organization out there. They are today taking on recurring flights in Whale waters, getting up close and personal with Whales and make new revelations.
"Drones are providing a powerful new tool for Whale research and conservation. Drones give researchers an unparalleled view of marine mammal health,” WHOI reported on May 2 straight off the deck of their latest expedition which took them to drone action in Cape Cod Bay US.
Researchers used drones to take critical photographs and obtain biological samples from Whale Blows in the North Atlantic cold waters.
WHOI said that their expedition helped “Endangered Whales get a High-Tech Check-Up”. Working with the National Atmospheric Administration NOAA, the Team dedicated the expedition to the study of the health of the marine mammals.
Reaching the Whale waters the old fashion way -in a simple 55 foot sailboat but geared up with the latest in drone technology -which today is not expensive, the Research team led by WHOI biologist Michael Moore and NOAA researchers John Durban and Holly Fearnbach sailed out into the Bay in search of Right Whales which feed just off the coast.
The remote controlled -six-rotor hexacopter took detailed aerial photographs of whales and collected samples of their “blows”.
Only recently have scientists come to terms with the potential of using Whale Blows to reveal key health details of Whales. Blows -unlike some may think are not water burst but are exhalations of air. Whales exhale air which condenses due to the changes of temperature -from within the body of the Whale to the outside and the exhalation becomes a spray or a blow.
Much like any doctor can sample DNA, test for bacteria, microbes or pathogens in the “breathe” of a human being drones can do the same by taking samples of the blow which are later analized.
It may seem that navigating an airborne drone right above a Whale when it breaches surfaces is like finding a needle in haystack but WHOI and NOAA had impressive success in their latest expedition.
In just three weeks the Team completed a total of 67 drone flights, took photographs of 35 different Whales for scientific purposes with high definition cameras and obtained 16 blow samples.
Now the Team will begin to analyze the data collected. Photographs of Whales will be taken to NOAA which will determine not only size, body and conditions but look for scars or injuries.
On land WHOI researchers Carolyn Miller and Amy Apprill will take to the sequencing of the genetic material which is present in the blow samples. They will be able to determine what kinds of bacteria, viruses, and fungi make up the blow "microbiome" of Whales.
This is as close as it gets when it comes down to analyzing the health of Whales -Giants of the Oceans without harming nor interfering in their environment.
Lucky for WHOI -and incredible as it may sound it is not the first time that whale blow samples are taken by drones so they will be able to use previous analysis of samples to compare the microorganisms which are present in the respiratory system of Whales and reveal hints into their health.
But when did it all start for Drone Whale Blow sampling? Ocean Alliance has the answer to that question and it is no coincidence that WHOI was actually involved in the first official Whale Blow Sampling expedition of the World.
Ocean Alliance through their project SnotBot collected a total of 22 Whale Exhaled Breath Condensate (Snot samples) in Patagonia Argentina for the first time ever through Drone flights in late 2015.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution partnered with the SnotBot to analysis the samples taken in that expèdition and none other than NOAA scientists analyzed the Patagonia Drone Imagery. This was the first drone scientific mission created and run successfully.
Amazingly SnotBot actually got off the ground last year thanks to a grassroot online social campaign. Ocean Alliance created the SnotBot project in 2015 and blasted it away in Kickstarter. It took some long weeks but soon funds began to flow for the program.
SnotBot says that their work is critical Whale Research conducted with drones. Their campaign got 1.739 sponsors which kicked in a total of 229 thousand 819 dollars. And just like that drones began to fly over Patagonia.
"Tens of thousands of whales are killed or injured every year as a direct or indirect result of human activities. The health of ocean ecosystems is tied directly to the health of Whales. If we continue to lose Whales, the results will be disastrous not just for the oceans, but for our entire planet,” SnotBot says.
“We need better technology to understand and document our impact on whales and their habitat. And we need tools that don’t further harm or harass them,” the kickstarter campaign led by Actor Patrick Stewart said in its inception.
On November 17, 2015 just months 4 months after the campaign was launched SnotBot released the final documentary of their results for the Patagonia expedition. They flew and tested 3 different types of drones. 78 flights over Right Whales in the South Atlantic were conducted. Over 1 thousand photogrammetry photographs of 57 different Whales were taken and 22 Whale Blows were obtained.
But SnotBot and Ocean Alliance did not stop there and are still today very active. While WHOI -which sure got lots of its inspiration from SnotBot continues to analyze the data from the North Atlantic Whale Health Expedition a Team of SnotBot just finished their Second Leg for the Cortez Sea Mexico Expedition.
SnotBot new expedition is perhaps one of the most interesting to the day because they sampled populations of Whales of the Pacific Ocean.
Wet Pixel reported on May 1 on the words of Christian Miller -expert on the drones at Sea of Cortez in Mexico for SnotBot.
“With an objective of changing the way we research Whales, a small team of four lucky guys are headed to the Sea of Cortez: Technician John Graham, Scientist Andy Rogan, Ocean Alliance CEO Iain Kerr and myself (Christian Miller) to film & document the project,” Miller said prior to day one.
Ocean Alliance explained that the expedition to the Sea of Cortez was split in two legs. The first leg or part of the expedition took place over several days in the San Ignacio Lagoon. The area is known for its large and stable population of Whales and the friendly character of Whales. The second Leg was in the Bay of La Paz -12 hour drive from San Ignacio.
The SnotBot Team dedicated its time in San Ignacio to testing different types of samplers which they attached to the drones to test which was the best system to gather the most amount of Whale Blow. In the end an upgraded version of the system they used in Patagonia which included Petri Dish attached to the top of the drone proved to be the best way to get the job done.
The Team managed to collect samples from Southern Right Whales and Social Grey Whales during the first leg of the expedition but knew that the challenges were ahead in Leg 2 when they had to face more open waters and obtain samples and images of more elusive and less social Humpback, Blue and Fin Whales.
“SnotBot Patagonia proved that we could collect snot from whales using a drone. The primary goal for SnotBot Sea of Cortez was to see if we could increase the snot sample size so that we would have enough to use for all the different analysis that we are interested in. The secondary goal was to collect snot from multiple whale species to make sure that our previous collection success was not a fluke (pun intended),” the Team explained.
In Leg 2 of the Sea of Cortez the team encountered delays, bad weather and had a hard time finding Whales even when they were guided by the local expert Dr. Urban from the University of La Paz.
The Team linked the lack of presence of Whales which typically take to the Bay of La Paz to El Niño and assured that “El Nino was wreaking havoc with the Sea of Cortez ecosystems, both marine and terrestrial”.
“These (Bay of La Paz) are (typically) very productive Whale grounds,” the Team said.
But how does El Niño affect Whales and the food webs? NASA has just recently answered this specific question in detail.
On April 4 NASA released the findings of their new study which examined the impact of El Niño on the Ocean's Food Source. The study is groundbreaking mostly because El Niño is usually studied from a weather perspective and while it has been linked to affecting diverse systems on ground and on the ocean the specific impacts which the event has on Ocean Food Source is not usually addressed directly.
“El Niño years can have a big impact on the littlest plants in the ocean,” NASA says.
When NASA says “littlest plants” in the ocean they actually mean plankton and similar microorganism which are the base of ocean food webs to which Whales belong to.
NASA explains that El Niño basically causes a massive amount of heated water -approximately the volume of all the water of the Mediterranean Sea to move east from the Pacific towards the continental shelf of South America.
“While this warm water changes storm systems in the atmosphere, it also has an impact below the ocean’s surface. These impacts, which researchers can visualize with satellite data, can ripple up the food chain to fisheries and the livelihoods of fishermen,” NASA says but experts assure that they can also affect Whales.
El Niño disrupts the rich upwelling events which happen all over the Pacific Coast of South America. From Chile to Mexico normally when not influenced by extreme climate change or El Niño upwellings drive a rich ecological system. Upwellings are complex cycles in which cold subsurface water rich in nutrients reaches the upper warmer surface waters of the ocean and enrich these waters where plankton and microorganism live. The increase of nutrients leads to a bloom of the base of the food web. When plankton and microorganisms bloom the entire food web, from small crustaceous to fish, tuna, Birds and Whales gather to feed. Fisheries which provide most of the fish Global demands also depend and fish on upwelling areas.
El Niño impacts this cycle and therefore causes the upwelling to either decrease or collapse and affects Ocean Food source.
“El Niño’s mass of warm water puts a lid on the normal currents of cold, deep water that typically rise to the surface along the equator and off the coast of Chile and Peru,” Stephanie Uz Ocean Scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center NASA explained the findings of the latest study.
"An El Niño basically stops the normal upwelling," Uz said. "There’s a lot of starvation that happens to the marine food web." These tiny plants, called phytoplankton, are fish food -without them, fish populations drop, and the fishing industries that many coastal regions depend on can collapse.
NASA assured that this year El Niño will not cause a complete collapse in South America and that while the Food Web is known to “pop up pretty quickly once the source of nutrients” kick back in, impacts should not be underestimated.
Back in the Sea of Cortez the Team of Ocean Alliance flying SnotBot drones struggled for days to find a Whale.
”We covered over 100 sun-blistering miles the first day, stopping every hour to look and listen. Despite the optimal conditions we did not see a single blow. We returned to our hotel that night tired, sunburnt and a little disheartened. This is the business though, so the next morning we were in the panga (boat) by 7:30 and back out on the water,” Christian Miller logged away the days of no-find of Leg 2.
On the final day the SnotBot Team decided to call headquarters in Canada for additional budget to hire a plane to provide aerial aid in the search of elusive Whales in the Sea of Cortez. The Team had too many miles of water to cover and the small boat did not do the trick. Despìte getting approval for a plane run the Team was finally lucky and found a Whale before the plane took off. For low budget expeditions spending is a big concern but success of the overall mission is priority as well.
“We stayed with this animal for the next few hours, keeping the boat away, but making a number of close approaches with the Inspire 1 (Drone),” Miller explained.
“Our drone and launch protocols, our practice as a team, our development of the collection methods all seemed to come together with great results, so we were living the SnotBot dream,” Miller ended it.
“We wanted to test whether this non-invasive way of collecting samples was going to work on lots of different species, Grey whales, Humpbacks and the mighty Blue Whale,” the Team which obtained the Pacific Whale Blows said.
WHOI in their latest North Atlantic Right Whale Drone Whale Blow Expedition began to scratch the surface of the importance of giving Wild Whales a health check.
“Understanding the health of North Atlantic right whales may prove critical to their survival: there are fewer than 500 of these animals left. They spend most of their lives within 50 miles of the East Coast of North America, making them vulnerable to human activities. Based on available data, more than half of right whales die in collisions with ships or by becoming entangled in fishing gear. In addition, climate change and a warming ocean may be reducing their main source of food -tiny crustaceans called copepods -leaving some right whales undernourished and less able to reproduce,” WHOI said.
A complete book -and not a short one could be written on the importance of giving Global Wild Whale Populations a health check. In the end humankind is and has been linked to Whales. Healthy Whales lead to Healthy Oceans and Healthy Oceans lead to a thriving environment, Planet and Society.
Protection measures emplaced from the North to the South Atlantic and from the South to the North Pacific prove that Whales do recover under protection policies. However today they face new challenges which bring health issues and these are globally inflicted driven by climate change and events like El Niño.
Climate Change and El Niño installs conditions in which pathogens and vector diseases rise. Additionally they impact the food webs leaving less food availability for organisms which become vulnerable to diseases due to undernourishment.
While Whales continue to navigate these oceans -hopefully in destiny away from becoming the “Last Standing Buffalo” new Teams of scientists continue to search for ways to get up and close...some have already succeeded in taking the first steps and they are decrypting Wild Whale secrets.
