An animal’s weight is more than just a random characteristic: It’s a window into understanding fundamental truths about how animals survive. By weighing animals, experts glean insights into how much those animals eat, how quickly they and their population are growing and — perhaps most crucially — how outside stressors like the byproducts of human life can impact their health.
That information is a crucial launching pad for conservationists to determine how best to protect these species.
But weighing especially large mammals isn’t easy. When it comes to whales, which can grow over 100 feet long and weigh upward of 200 tons, scientists have had to rely on the limited information provided by dead specimens that were caught in fishing nets, washed up on shore or were intentionally killed for the purpose of research. Though obviously better than no specimens at all, this narrow scope pales in comparison to what scientists could learn from live specimens, especially as whales come under increased threat.
That’s where drones come in.
Scientists have figured out a way to pair drone photographs with historical data, using the combined information to develop a model used that accurately calculates a whale’s body volume and mass. The new model can be used to track both individual whales and various species over time.
This breakthrough, which was published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution in October, is an important step in both researching and protecting whales.
“Knowing the body mass of free-living whales opens up new avenues of research,” Fredrick Christiansen, the lead researcher of the study from Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, told Cosmos.
Standing on the deck of sailboats, researchers controlled drones and took photos of 86 southern right whales. Though these photos helped create a model endemic to this species of whale, scientists believe the approach can be adjusted for use with other large marine animals.
“Weighing live whales with a drone at sea, we can get growth rates and changes in body conditions,” Michael Moore, a senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and a co-author of the study told Cape Cod Times. “We learn a lot more about stressors like food, what lack of food does to animals.”
Moore also noted that the model can help when trying to detangle whales from fishing gear. The model will allow veterinarians and conservationists to give an accurate dose of sedatives when freeing the whale.
Two co-authors of the study are already using the model to look at the links between survival rates of southern right whale calves and kelp gull harassment, which is when birds land on the backs of the calves and attack, which can negatively impact the calves’ health and survival rates.
Co-authors Mariano Sironi and Marcela Uhart, from the Southern Right Whale Health Monitoring Program, told Cosmos that “the use of drones to estimate whale weight and condition, as well as to individually track calves while they grow beside their mothers, has been a real breakthrough in our investigation.”
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Tag: marine
This Hardworking Group Is Restoring the Shoreline of America’s Last Frontier
About 30 years ago, then-construction worker Chris Pallister discovered that some of the most remote shorelines in America were also the most polluted. The cause? Currents off the infamous North Pacific Gyre — the site of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — propel a disproportionate amount of detrius towards Alaska’s coasts.
To cleanup the Last Frontier, Pallister founded Gulf of Alaska Keeper, an organization that’s been actively cleaning beaches in Prince William Sound and the Northern Gulf Coast since 2002. The nonprofit’s five boats, seasonal crew of 12 and dozens of regular volunteers has removed an estimated 2.5 million pounds of marine debris (mostly plastic items) from more than 1,500 miles of coastline. Pallister knows that there needs to be an immense effort to stop this pollution at the source, but in the meantime, he says, “somebody has to keep this stuff cleaned up.”
See the largest ongoing marine debris cleanup by watching the video above.
How This Veteran Transitioned From Combat to Cocktails
Steve Schneider, a former United States Marine turned world champion bartender, holds a wooden mallet. It’s his signature tool, and he uses it not only to crush ice for cocktails, but also to serve as a symbol of strength.
“I wanted to help people, you know? I wanted to make a man of myself and make a difference,” he says, explaining how he volunteered for a deployment after Sept. 11, 2001.
“In the Marine Corps I excelled, physically, academically, mentally,” he continues, reflecting on his sense of invincibility after graduating top of his class in boot camp.
But Schneider, who later built his future at a bar, almost died after a night out on the town during training for this elite unit that was headed to Japan, then Afghanistan. “I got in an accident,” he says, as the picture behind him transitions from clean cut military man to a hospital patient in a coma with two purple eyes, three plates in his skull and 52 stitches that left a scar framing his face. “I got my ass kicked, to be honest.”
Feeling lost, and thinking about his friends who he was supposed to be leading overseas, he stumbled upon a Washington, D.C. bar with a “Help Wanted” sign posted. What started out as a way to make a few extra bucks evolved into so much more — leading him to enter — and win — several speed bartending competitions and develop confidence in his craft.
Now, Schneider is one of the principal bartenders at “Employee’s Only” in New York City. “And that’s when everything started to take off for me,” says Schneider, the central character of the 2013 film Hey Bartender. “It gave me a platform to be the best at what I do.”
Watch his talk and prepare to be inspired by a veteran who is a walking, talking, mallet-bearing example of turning adversity into opportunity.