New thermal ship alerts aim to save gray whales

thermal ship – Gray whales are increasingly appearing in San Francisco Bay, but ship strikes have already killed seven of 16 seen this year. Researchers and local officials have deployed heat-sensing cameras and AI screening to detect whale exhalations, then send position al

Spouts that once would have been a rarity are showing up off Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay—right in one of the busiest waterways in the country. Gray whales. detouring off their long migration from Mexico to Alaska. appear to be searching for food as changing ocean conditions reduce the prey they normally rely on in Arctic waters.

For the whales. the detour comes with a brutal tradeoff: they’re adapting to one human-caused pressure by feeding in a new place. but that puts them directly into the path of another hazard. Ships crisscross the bay every day. By this year, researchers have found evidence that several of the gray whales were killed by ship strikes.

Of 16 gray whales seen in San Francisco Bay this year, seven have died.

With some of the whales lingering in the bay for weeks. a coalition of marine scientists and local officials has been testing a new system designed to prevent collisions—one that tries to do what daytime sightings alone can’t. A thermal camera has been installed on an island in the bay to spot heat from the whales’ exhalations. When a potential sighting appears, it is screened by artificial intelligence and then confirmed by human screeners.

The U.S. Coast Guard can then use the confirmed information to alert vessels and ships. Gary Reed, director of Vessel Traffic Service San Francisco for the U.S. Coast Guard, said, “We want the word to get out. We want people to know there are whales in a particular location so they don’t encounter them.”.

That urgency is tied to what’s happening beyond the bay. Gray whales in the North Pacific are declining. with the current population estimated at around 13. 000—about half of what it was a decade ago. Last year, 22 gray whales died in the larger San Francisco Bay Area, the highest number in 25 years. The pattern is showing up along other parts of the West Coast as well.

On a beach on Angel Island, the giant vertebrae of three whales lie in a row on the sand. They’re the remnants of whale necropsies—animal autopsies carried out by two Bay Area research institutions. the Marine Mammal Center and the California Academy of Sciences. When a dead whale is spotted, the researchers rapidly try to assess the cause of death.

Broken bones and bruised tissue are often signs of ship strike. Kathi George, director of Cetacean Conservation Biology at the Marine Mammal Center, said of a female whale that came into the bay this year, “She died from injuries due to blunt force trauma from vessel strike.”

In recent years, an alarming number of whales have also been washing up malnourished, both in California and in the Pacific Northwest.

Gray whales undertake one of the longest migrations of any mammal, traveling around 12,000 miles roundtrip every year. They spend the summers feeding in the cold waters of the Arctic. where prey is abundant. then swim to Baja California. Mexico for the winter. where they have their young. In the Arctic. they need to fuel up—building the reserves required for such an arduous journey—so they can start with a full tank.

But sea ice is shrinking in the Arctic, one of the fastest warming places on the planet. That shift is changing the ecosystem and reducing the availability of the tiny, shrimp-like animals gray whales feed on. Gray whales need to eat more than a ton of them per day. Scientists believe whales are running out of fuel before they can finish their migration.

George said, “These whales are hungry. We think they’re stopping at different areas along their route to find sources of food, and San Francisco Bay has become one of those hotspots.”

Not far from the span of the Bay Bridge. a puff of spray—proof a whale has surfaced—appears in the distance. Shawn Henry. CEO of WhaleSpotter. pulls up an image on a laptop to show how his company’s camera detects the whale’s exhalation. “That blow is a little bit warmer than the water and the air around. so it provides a very good thermal signature. ” he said.

Once detected, the whale’s position is posted on the WhaleSafe website, run by UCSB’s Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory. The Coast Guard then uses the information to alert vessels over the radio about a whale’s position. Before this project, Coast Guard alerts relied on visual reports of whales from vessels during the day.

Reed said the difference matters at night: “Now with this new technology, it’ll show us whales at night, so we can identify them and notify traffic.”

A second camera is also being installed on a local ferry. The Bay Area’s two ferry companies say their operators will either slow down or go around areas where whales have been seen. The goal is simple—reduce the chance of a collision in a place where whales may stay for weeks—but it is complicated for larger container ships. which are far less maneuverable and are constrained to specific shipping lanes in the bay.

For now, the effort is voluntary for ships. McCauley. director of the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory at the University of California Santa Barbara. said researchers have seen significant compliance with voluntary speed limits from shipping fleets without mandatory regulations. He added. “I’m really optimistic that this is one of those solutions where the community comes together. and the community solves it. but we’ll see.”.

The stakes aren’t only about this season. McCauley said conditions for gray whales may only become more challenging in the future. “The whales are showing an ability to adapt, but it may only go so far,” he said. He described the whales’ response in human terms, saying, “The world is changing, they’re trying their best to change themselves. The one thing they’re not doing is quitting.”.

gray whales San Francisco Bay ship strikes thermal cameras artificial intelligence U.S. Coast Guard WhaleSafe climate change Arctic prey marine conservation