Right Whale Listening Network
The world's last 350 North Atlantic right whales live along the East
Coast. Collisions with ships are a deadly hazard, but new listening
buoys are helping. The smart buoys listen for whale calls all day, every day.
The smart buoys listen and analyze the sounds they 'hear.' Sounds with a high probability of coming from a Right Whale are relayed via satellite or cell phone to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. There, analysts listen to the sounds and study spectrograms of each sound to identify actual Right Whale sounds.
When a Right Whale has been detected, alerts are sent to ship captains so they will know where and when to slow down.
The Right Whale Listening Network web site provides several video presentations describing the project along with a map showing Right Whale detections within the past 24 hours.