Technology wants to help identify these cetaceans and whether their population is declining
There are so many amazing animals on planet Earth, it would take us centuries to cover them all. On this occasion, we want to talk to you about Whales. We are talking about marine beings that inhabit the Arctic, among other places, and that some species can be albino, as is the case of white whales. And now, the leadership takes it Megaptera novaeangliae.
Artificial intelligence to monitor humpback whales
A recent article published in the Royal Society Open Science has opened our eyes about the use of artificial intelligence to identify humpback whales in the northern Pacific Ocean. The results of the investigation, for the moment, show a worrying fact.
Around the 20% of the humpback whale population from this region it seems that has diminished and now researchers want to use the most advanced technology to closely follow the evolution of a marine species that is beginning to understand the ravages of human activity on the planet.
#RSOS in @guardian | Bellwethers of change: population modeling of North Pacific humpback whales from 2002 through 2021 reveals shift from recovery to climate response: https://t.co/BLqe8mUbRV
—Royal Society Publishing (@RSocPublishing) February 29, 2024
As if it were a fingerprint or modern facial recognition, the study wants to use the tails of these whales to identify them. Variations in size, pigmentation, distinctive scars or unique marks are the identifier of each of these cetaceans and that is why the technology will try to help us know the number of copies in every moment.
The non-profit organization HappyWhale owns a image catalog obtained by scientists and amateurs that will serve so that, together with this new AIthey can detect changes in the population of humpback whales much more quickly than with the traditional method.
The intersection of marine biology and artificial intelligence technology has led to a startling humpback whale population discovery. https://t.co/EjGcuYbeBO
— ABC News (@ABC) March 3, 2024
For 40 years, the hunting of this species of whale has been illegal, and that is why we have gone from a marine species in danger of extinction to a population which was estimated at 2012 in 33,488 copies Worldwide. However, the data available up to 2021 show that these cetaceans have been reduced to 26,662.
It seems that climate change has caused an increase in the temperature of the oceans, which also contributes to their less and less nutrients for the whales. The researchers write in their text:
These advances have changed the paradigm of fullness estimation, going from a scarcity of data and periodic studies to a continuous and accessible monitoring of the population of ocean basins over time.