The intersection of marine biology and artificial intelligence technology has led to the discovery of an astonishing population of humpback whales.
Approximately 7,000 humpback whales in the North Pacific died between 2012 and 2021 as a result of years of marine heatwaves, according to a study published Wednesday by the Royal Society Open Science. This equates to a 20% decrease over this period.
The marine heatwave began in 2013 and lasted until 2021, causing water temperatures to rise sharply and ocean productivity to decline around the world.
In the North Pacific, the humpback whale population has declined from 33,500 in 2012 to 26,500 by 2021, a study found.
This large-scale international study collected data and images from 46 organizations and 4,292 community science contributors and used AI technology to efficiently match and identify humpback whales around the world.
“We collected data on more than 30,000 individual humpback whales in more than 200,000 encounters, which would have been virtually impossible without automatic image recognition using AI,” said the study’s lead researcher. Dr. Ted Cheeseman told ABC News. “This provides a cost-effective tool that changes the research landscape and gives us hope of keeping up with the pace of ecosystem change.”
Previously, whale populations were estimated using methods such as manual vessel surveys and with much smaller sample sizes, but the implementation of AI matching techniques has made it possible to include a broader range of data and showed a significant decline in the humpback whale population. According to the study, the North Pacific Ocean.
The AI technology used photo matching to identify individual humpback whales based on their tail fin shapes and pigment patterns.
“We’re very excited because this pioneers a new research method,” John Karambokidis, a senior research biologist and co-author of the study, told ABC News. “This will bring together more researchers and people and create a more collaborative and collaborative atmosphere for future research.”
Humpback whale images and data were aggregated through a platform called Happywhale, where researchers and whale watchers alike submitted photos of whales for this and future studies.
According to the website, nearly 800,000 photos have been sent to Happy Whale, leading to the identification of more than 100,000 individual whales.
“One of the exciting developments with Happy Whale, crowdsourcing and automated matching is that it has led to more contributions from citizen scientists and whale watchers,” Karambokidis said.
“We are learning that changes occurring in the environment can have profound effects on long-lived species like whales, which people cherish and cherish,” Kalambokidis said. “is important in motivating protection and conservation.”
Although the humpback whale population has made a remarkable recovery after the International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986, Karambokidis said this comprehensive study shows that climate change is impacting marine life. He said that it shows the harsh reality of the situation.
“It’s only in the last few years that scientists have been able to really understand how whale populations recover from commercial whaling,” Karambokidis said.
Professor Kalambokidis said that despite the increase in humpback whale populations along the U.S. West Coast, this international study shows that “overall humpback whale populations have declined in recent years. “This appears to be related to climate change, which has caused a decline in ”
The ocean heatwave, which researchers called the blob, had far-reaching impacts on ecosystems, from nutrient-starved phytoplankton to food chains to whales, sea lions, and seabirds facing food shortages. .
“The distressing aspect is the scale and duration of these naturally occurring cyclical patterns,” Dr. Ari Friedlander, a professor of oceanography at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told ABC News.
“Animals may be able to withstand shorter or less frequent marine heatwaves, but when they become more common and larger extremes, ecosystems are very difficult to cope with. It becomes difficult.”
Commenting on the study’s impact, Friedlander said, “It raises the flag, but it doesn’t answer the question of how to protect and conserve these animals.”
