Scientists track whales from space
The observation satellite WorldView-2, the American company DigitalGlobe, are using high resolution photos of the Earth and image-processing software to detect whales near the surface of the ocean, according to the report published in the journal PLoS ONE.A team of scientists from the British Antarctic Survey tested the WorldView-2 with Southern Right whales-southern Gulf Coast in Nuevo argentina, and found that the automated system captured 89 percent of whales during a manual search of images."With the increased resolution of photos captured by satellite and the improvement of our analysis, we started to be able to monitor more species and in other types of locations," said study author Peter Fretwell to BBC. "It will be possible to make total counts of populations and, in the future, follow the trajectory of the same," he added.The waves and the cloudy water can confound the WorldView-2, having been due to these aspects that the Frankish-southern whales were chosen for the tests â€" because they are slow swimmers, too shallow and can be used to control other animals."The other aspect is the fact that many researchers of marine mammals have been killed flying in small planes while they were researching whales," said Vicky Rowntree, Director of the program of the southern right whale in the Ocean Alliance, the BBC. "I want the scientists let the small planes that circulate about the whales and start doing it from a distance".Photo: NOAA
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