Glider to help track whales

HALIFAX — A new marine robot part of a fleet of underwater gliders operated by the Ocean Tracking Network and Dalhousie University will help monitor endangered North Atlantic right whales to keep them from colliding with ships.

The newest glider will carry a hydrophone that can identify the calls of the right whales and report their locations, Fred Whoriskey of the Ocean Tracking Network said Monday. The University of New Brunswick and Transport Canada are also partners in the $3.6-million project. “There is no one way to effectively determine where the whales are at any given moment when they are in the Gulf of St. Lawrence,” he said in an interview. “So we need to start blending our approaches.”