The ability to give ships captains a reliable source of information on location of orcas is a work in progress.
Fortunately, it doesn’t happen very often in the Pacific Northwest that ships collide with whales. But when it does, it’s upsetting, tragic and the whale probably dies. Three separate teams have developed smartphone-based systems that can alert commercial mariners to watch out, slow down or change course when whales have been sighted nearby. A recent ride-along on a big container ship demonstrated that real-time whale alerts are still a work in progress.
Reducing collisions between ships and whales? There’s apps for that, but they need work | Northwest News Network (nwnewsnetwork.org)
Filed under: Around the Sound, Endangered Species, Environmental Protection |
