Have camera, whale travel
If you like to take pictures of wildlife, you can help scientists out
For one week in January, passengers aboard Le Boreal, a cruise ship operated by the French company Ponant, soaked up Antarctica’s wildlife. They stood on the ship’s decks to marvel at three types of orcas, or killer whales, swimming seamlessly in groups. They stayed up late to watch humpback whales perform bubble net feeding, working together to scoop up schools of fish in one swift movement. Hiking on the continent, they saw penguins waddling down “penguin highways” and nursing their young. On small boats, they got up close to leopard seals sunbathing on floating pieces of ice.
Through every adventure, guests took hundreds, if not thousands, of photographs, recording each scene from different angles and zooming in on the animals, including specific body parts. They were doing so not just to show off on Instagram, but also to contribute meaningfully to science.
Those who captured detailed pictures of whales sent them to Happywhale, an organization that tracks the migratory patterns of whales through photo submissions using the unique markings on the animals’ tails. “It’s just like tagging, but it doesn’t harm the animal,” said Ted Cheeseman, founder of Happywhale. “Getting answers to scientists’ questions takes a huge amount of data. Because of these photos, it seems likely we will be successful.”
This is what citizen science is all about.
Scientists are limited by time and money. A single day of research in Antarctica, for example, costs an average of $50,000. They also can’t be everywhere in the world at once. So a growing number of research groups have turned to the general public, including tourists, for help. Why not use travellers, with their iPhones and cameras and desire to take a lot of photos, to collect evidence?
It’s also a win for tourists who get to engage more deeply with their surroundings while on vacation. “You can be on deck enjoying the views while also being part of something greater than you,” said Alejandra Nuñez-de la Mora, a Mexican bioanthropologist who was a naturalist on Le Boreal. She taught passengers how to contribute to science.
Since Happywhale launched in 2015, the initiative has collected 150,000 photographs of whales in 40,000 encounters. Those photographs aren’t just going to Cheeseman, who is completing his PhD in marine biology at Southern Cross University in New South Wales, Australia. Scientific institutions, including the Cascadia Research Collective in Washington state and the International Whaling Commission, charged with the conservation of whales and the regulation of whaling, rely on them.
“We’re burning a lot of fuel to go to Antarctica,” Cheeseman said. “It makes these trips more meaningful and valuable if everyone can see the data and learn something from it.”
Science also benefits when wide populations are interested in projects, said Nuñez-de la Mora. “We are lucky to have people on these voyages who are in positions of power or influence,” she said. “You never know who will decide they want to get involved more.” Protective policies and funding could come from these projects.
One of Happywhale’s most frequent contributors is Deana Glenz. She finds the experience so rewarding that she selects vacation spots only if they include whale watching. In January, she flew to Guerrero Negro, Mexico, to spot humpback whales. In February, it was Cabo San Lucas. In March, she headed to the Dominican Republic to swim with them.
“You are standing on a boat that is moving, trying to capture a clear photo of an animal that is also moving,” she said. “It’s super hard.”
She estimates she can identify 350 whales just from seeing their patterns. She’s also seen the same whale in different places around the world. “When I see a whale often, I give it a nickname,” she said. “There is one that I call Heart String. She has a marking that looks like a heart pendulum.”
Cheeseman finds inspiration in the fact that so many of his contributors are teenagers and children.
“We make sure to send contributors notifications when their whale has been found in other parts of the world to keep them engaged,” he said.
Organizations have made it their focus to steer tourists to citizen-science opportunities. GoAbroad.com, a search engine for travel opportunities, has an entire section of its website that lists biological research volunteer programs. Its search engine gives you opportunities based on where you want to go in the world, how long you want to be abroad, and your interests. The National Geographic Society also has a citizen-science-project search.
“Machines have gotten better, but science still needs human eyes,” Nuñez-de la Mora said. “We’ll take as many eyeballs as we can get.”