This is a entrancing interview with marine scientist John Durban , who explains how his team is using drones to supervise the health of killer whales in the weewee off the coast of California . The best part is that he demonstrate us how to understand what we ’re encounter in aerial photographs of the whales .
Some of the intelligence is sad , because decline salmon populations mean that a few of these whale appear to be stave to death . But there is good news , too : We see a very fraught whale , along with a sound sister and juvenile .
From the story , by Rich Press of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ’s fisheries part :
The main interrogation scientist are seek to answer is : Are the whales getting enough to run through ? To find out , they vanish the hexacopter at an height of more than 100 feet , high enough that the whale do n’t notice it , but near enough to get picture that are incredibly revealing . scientist have previously taken aerial photographs of killer whales from a eggbeater , but those photos are carry from a much high altitude , and the cost can be prohibitive .
By psychoanalyse the hexacopter pic , scientist can see how fat or skinny item-by-item hulk are . They can also see which giant are pregnant and what share of pregnancies are sway to terminal figure .
Currently , scientist do a summertime census to acquire out how many whales have drop dead since the year before . “ But mortality is a pretty coarse standard of how well the population is doing because the job , if there is one , has already occurred , ” said John Durban , a biologist with NOAA ’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla , California . But the hexacopter , Durban said , “ can give us a more tender measure that we might be able to respond to before whales die . ”
Read morevia NOAA .
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