Infrared Cameras Could Help Ships Avoid Hitting Whales

190703-thermal-ir-cameras-in-bc-for-whale-detection-se-446p_f9d4faace2bb5d69165f09856b6112ea.fit-560w.jpg — Dan Zitterbart of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is part of a team developing a thermal infrared camera to help vessels avoid whale strikes.

Heather Goldstone is the science editor at WCAI, the Cape and Islands NPR Station. She holds a Ph.D. in ocean science from M.I.T. and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and spent a decade as an active researcher before leaving the lab to become a writer.

August 06, 2019

Updated July 03, 2023

Eight critically endangered North Atlantic right whales have died this summer, several of them hit by ships.

In the last two years alone, 20 North Atlantic right whales have been found dead in Canadian waters. Of the 11 that could be studied, seven were found to have died as a result of vessel strikes.

That has prompted Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans to announce a new round of funding to develop better ways for ships to find whales and avoid hitting them.

One of those technologies is thermal infrared imaging.

“What we are exploiting here is the apparent temperature contrast between the background, which is the ocean, and the whale spout itself,” Dan Zitterbart, an assistant scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and part of the team developing the technology, told Living Lab Radio.

“A very characteristic whale blow can be picked up in thermal infrared cameras as a warm feature compared to the background,” he said.

Zitterbart and his team have already shown that the concept works. By the end of 2020, they plan to have a prototype machine that they can test on commercial vessels. As a scientist, it isn’t Zitterbart’s role to commercialize the machine, but rather to get it to a point where it works without an expert at the helm.

Whether or not infrared cameras can help North Atlantic right whales is an open question. Zitterbart says the technology is more likely to help the fast ferries near the Canary Islands, for example.

“They have a massive problem with ship strikes of sperm whales,” he explained. “And they are pretty maneuverable ships, so they can slow down pretty quickly. If you’re talking about a supertanker, that's a different scale of the problem.”

Nevertheless, with only around 400 North Atlantic right whales left in the world, it’s time to try everything, he said.

“We estimate every one of those [deaths] dramatically reduces the survival rate of the species,” Zitterbart said. “So, if we can get a piece of the pie with all the different technologies that are out there, I think that's the best we can do.”