Researchers deploy drones to spy on sperm whales

Drones are being developed at an increasingly rapid pace and privacy watchdogs are concerned about the way the unmanned aircraft might be used. But for one group of scientists ramping up the use of drones, there will be no complaints from the study subjects: large whales.

Wayne Perryman, a marine biologist for NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center, recently returned from a pioneering spy expedition to the South Pacific, where two drones were tested in the study of sperm whales.

Perryman was among the first scientists to adapt military spy technology to monitor dolphin populations in the 1980s (when thousands of dolphins were dying in tuna nets).

He had also used unmanned aircraft to study penguins and leopard seals on land. 

Perryman, additionally, has studied whales extensively from airplanes, gleaning such information as age, weight and whether a whale is injured, entangled in fishing gear or pregnant.

But airplane research is costly, invasive and impractical. Large planes cannot be flown closely to the mammals without altering their behavior.

Much smaller, quieter drones, on the other hand, are inexpensive and can be flown almost directly overhead. (Said Perryman via email: "I tend to call them unmanned aerial systems (UAS) rather than drones because of the knee-jerk negative reaction in some about drones.")

In the South Pacific off New Zealand, however, Perryman learned first-hand the challenges associated with piloting unmaned aircraft from a small research boat (large boats cannot get close enough to the whales).

"Catching the bird from an active deck was a bit like trying to catch a knuckleball bare-handed," Perryman said in an NOAA report on the drone aspect of the expedition. He was working with Don LeRoi, an engineer with Aerial Imaging Solutions.

Like so many drones being produced today, theirs was built using inexpensive electronics and consumer-grade cameras. Because of the knuckleball effect, and at least one of the small vessels ending up in the water, the two are designing a model that's entirely waterproof and designed for splash landings, for retrieval by net.

Perryman also is planning a second mission, during which he intends to send the drone directly over the whales' blowholes and through their towering plumes, as they're exhaling. The mist contains various cells and enzymes that can reveal a DNA profile, hormone levels and other indications of a whale's health and physiology.

"If you're going to manage a population of whales, you need to know more than just how many there are," Perryman said. "You have to know something about the condition of the animals in the population." Drones, it seems, will become the ideal spy tools to help determine just that.

--Photos: Top image shows Wayne Perryman attempting to catch an incoming drone. Third image  shows Perryman (left) and Don Leroi inspecting an unmanned aircraft. Credit Moira Brown/New England Aquarium. Middle image shows view from a drone. Courtesy of Wayne Perryman/NOAA Fisheries

--For more information on the Sperm Whales New Zealand project, check out the expedition blog.

--Note: This is a reprint from a Pete Thomas post on GrindTv.com

Comments

[willem gruffey]

How did we get from honest struggles of science to the blowholes of patriots?

[drudown]

@ Samuel

Yes, you're right! After wasting over $2.2 TRILLION invading Iraq under false pretenses and seeing incalculable soldiers' lives wrecked and broken beyond belief...let's get rid of drone use altogether.

In fact, while we are at it, let's further subvert reality and pretend that President Obama's use of drones is ANY different whatsoever from President George W. Bush's.

Give me a break already.

Why don't you cite a single instance of an US citizen who has actual standing to sue in Federal court over "drone use" contravening his/her Constitutional rights? By my count, you can come up with one: al-Awlaki. Surely you cannot credibly contend that such a person- someone that prates on and on on Al Jazeera re the "destruction of the US and its People" has the same due process rights organizing Al Qaeda activities in Yemen as a law abiding person does here at home?

Get real.

"Thy love afar is spite at home." - Emerson

[Teresa Wagner]

Bravo to these researchers for studying whales with non invasive methods. So much better to get DNA from their exhaled breath than from harpooning them to get blubber. Thank you for your work to help us understand the protect whales!

[Samuel R. Kephart]

Domestic drone usage is ill-conceived, elitist, and end-runs our inherent Constitutional protections.

Here are two (2), very well-produced, videos that anchor my points:

Emmy Award-winning newscaster Shad Olson’s ‘The Great Drone Debate’, featuring US Senator John Thune:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssoOASanKao

Here’s a mind-blowing, well-done animated short that really captures our collective angst that if the road to perdition is paved with good intentions, then domestic drones are a superhighway to an Orwellian panoptic gulag.

http://vimeo.com/59689349

For national security purposes, Americans are already subject to warrantless wiretaps of calls and emails, the warrantless GPS “tagging” of their vehicles, the domestic use of Predators or other spy-in-the-sky drones, and the Department of Homeland Security’s monitoring of all our behavior through “data fusion centers.” 

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/

America’s promise has always been the power of the many to rule, instead of the one. Ungoverned drone usage, particularly domestically, gives power to the one.