PATAGONIA, SOUTH AMERICA

Although a lack of shipping activity during the coronavirus pandemic has been welcome relief to whales, many species’ numbers are nevertheless in decline worldwide due to factors like pollution, commercial whaling and entanglement in fishing lines. Twenty species are currently either endangered or vulnerable. To better understand and mitigate threats to the whale population, it’s essential that researchers are able to safely collect data from whales. But due to their size, speed, sensitivity and intelligence, whales are notoriously difficult for scientists to accurately assess in their natural habitat, and techniques for collecting data have often been invasive and stressful for the animals.

Since about 2015, drones have been commonly used as a scientific marine tool. SnotBots are a more recent development – custom-built drones created in partnership between Ocean Alliance and Olin College of Engineering. They hover above a surfacing whale and collect the blow (or snot) exhaled from its lungs, then deliver the sample to researchers a significant distance away. The development has been lauded as it does not impact or harm the whale in any way, which means any data collected ideally represent the whale in its ‘natural’ state, rather than distressed or stressed. In this way, scientists can learn much about whales’ health status, reproduction, DNA and microbiomes. The original SnotBots worked in seas off Mexico and South America, however their use is now being extended globally.

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In southern Peru, scientists have unearthed the ancient fossils of a four-legged whale that walked the Earth and swam the seas some 43 million years ago. mindfood.com/hooved-whale-peru