Humans aren’t great when it comes to looking after other species on the planet.
We’ve known this for a while.
One of the most exploited animals are/were whales. A lot of whaling has now been halted, but only after we reduced their populations to near extinction. But while the harpooning might have subsided, we’re still running them over with our boats.
Thousands of whales are injured or killed each year after being struck by ships, particularly the large container vessels that ferry 80% of the world’s traded goods across the oceans. Collisions are the leading cause of death worldwide for large whale species.
If this sort of thing was happening on land, we’d all be up in arms, not least because whales shouldn’t be on land.
But you know what I mean.
That said, it’s really difficult to spot whales in the oceans, and then even more difficult to spot them in time to make an evasive manoeuvre with a 300m long container vessel.
Step forward WhaleSpotter:
An artificial intelligence-powered whale detection system that aims to transmit real-time alerts to ships to prevent them from colliding with whales.
And that link is to a really interesting article about the design, implementation, challenges and goals for this system, which aims to make ship strikes a thing of the past.
Go give it a read.