Thermal imaging to help protect whales from noise
August 2013. Physicists at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research have successfully tested a thermal imaging system aboard the re-search vessel Polarstern. The system automatically detects large whales by their spouts, day or night, from distances up to five kilometres. The system detected significantly more whales than researchers using binoculars to spot the animals. The thermal imaging camera and accompanying analysis soft-ware is an effective tool for protecting these rare marine mammals from intense underwater noise.
Noise pollution
Pile driving during construction of wind farms and the use of airguns when searching for oil and gas unavoidably result in noise pollution in the surrounding area. To ensure that marine mammals are not harmed when in the close vicinity of these activities, regulatory authorities request so-called mitigation measures for their protection. One of such measures requires airguns to be switched off or pile driving to be stopped when whales approach the respective sound source too closely. Yet is has been extremely difficult to monitor the surrounding seas for whales around the clock effectively - and that for weeks and weeks?
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