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Listening for Whales

November 17, 2017

WHOI Biologist Mark Baumgartner recovers a robotic glider after it helped find several endangered North Atlantic right whales. The glider was equipped with a digital acoustic monitoring (DMON) instrument developed at WHOI. Baumgartner wrote the software that allows the DMON to detect, classify, and report the unique calls of different whales, and the glider’s satellite antenna transmits its findings to shore every two hours. Baumgartner has found that the human threats facing right whales in the Gulf of Maine present a significant threat to the critically endangered species. (Photo by Nadine Lysiak, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)