Skip to main content

Offshore buoy detects its first whale in waters along New York City

Earlier this year, a team of scientists from the New York Aquarium and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution deployed an acoustic buoy to record the sound of whales off the coast of New York City. The buoy is listening 24/7 and conducting the largest ever survey of the whales that visit the Big Apple. Within two weeks, the listening post recorded its first visitor, and it was a big one — a fin whale.
Recommended Videos

In what’s likely a surprising revelation to many people, New York is home to a diverse population of whales, with seven different species having been sighted offshore by both scientists and whale-watching vessels. Scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society, which operates the New York Aquarium, wanted to learn more about this population and deployed a sophisticated acoustic listening buoy that’ll float off the shore. The bright orange buoy will bob at the surface of the ocean in a location known as the New York Bight, a wedge-shaped section of the continental shelf that extends from the eastern tip of Long Island to the Cape May area of New Jersey.

Designed by Woods Hole scientists and manufactured by EOM Offshore, the buoy is comprised of three essential parts — an orange surface portion with a satellite antenna, an anchored bottom node with a digital acoustic monitoring device, and a stretch hose that transmits sounds from the monitoring to the surface. Themonitoring device hovers a few feet above the ocean floor, capturing and recording the vocalizations of the offshore whales. It can distinguish whale sounds from background noises and identifies which whales are making that sound. These signals are sent through the stretch hoses to the buoy, where a satellite antenna is used to send the information to a land-based computer. The recorded data is then shared on a public website in nearly real time.

After deploying the device on June 23, the team recorded its first whale vocalization a mere 12 days later on July 4. The first whale to visit the buoy was a fin whale, the world’s second-largest species of whale. Known for its streamlined shape and dorsal fin, the fin whale is commonly spotted in the Bight by whale watchers. Since its first vocalization, the fin whale has been detected several times, with the most recent visit  recorded on July 30. Only the fin whale has been identified to date, but the researchers expect to hear other whales, such as the commonly spotted humpback whale and the endangered North Atlantic right whale, in the future.

Besides its obvious scientific utility, the acoustical whale survey also is an integral part of BlueYork, a larger educational campaign to inform New Yorkers of the diverse aquatic ecosystem sitting on their doorstep. “We’re excited to share this discovery with the residents of New York City and to help promote a better awareness of these marine mammals in the region,” said New York Aquarium Vice President Jon Forrest in a statement. “The acoustic buoy will help us monitor the whales and learn more about their needs. New Yorkers can now share in that process of discovery and conservation.”

Kelly Hodgkins
Kelly's been writing online for ten years, working at Gizmodo, TUAW, and BGR among others. Living near the White Mountains of…
The UK’s Wayve brings its AI automated driving software to U.S. shores
wayve ai automated driving us driver assist2 1920x1152 1

It might seem that the autonomous driving trend is moving at full speed and on its own accord, especially if you live in California.Wayve, a UK startup that has received over $1 billion in funding, is now joining the crowded party by launching on-road testing of its AI learning system on the streets of San Francisco and the Bay Area.The announcement comes just weeks after Tesla unveiled its Robotaxi at the Warner Bros Studios in Burbank, California. It was also in San Francisco that an accident last year forced General Motors’ robotaxi service Cruise to stop its operations. And it’s mostly in California that Waymo, the only functioning robotaxi service in the U.S., first deployed its fleet of self-driving cars. As part of its move, Wayve opened a new office in Silicon Valley to support its U.S. expansion and AI development. Similarly to Tesla’s Full-Self Driving (FSD) software, the company says it’s using AI to provide automakers with a full range of driver assistance and automation features.“We are now testing our AI software in real-world environments across two continents,” said Alex Kendall, Wayve co-founder and CEO.The company has already conducted tests on UK roads since 2018. It received a huge boost earlier this year when it raised over $1 billion in a move led by Softbank and joined by Microsoft and Nvidia. In August, Uber also said it would invest to help the development of Wayve’s technology.Just like Tesla’s FSD, Wayve’s software provides an advanced driver assistance system that still requires driver supervision.Before driverless vehicles can legally hit the road, they must first pass strict safety tests.So far, Waymo’s technology, which relies on pre-mapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar, and lidar (a laser-light radar), is the only of its kind to have received the nod from U.S. regulators.

Read more
Aptera’s 3-wheel solar EV hits milestone on way toward 2025 commercialization
Aptera 2e

EV drivers may relish that charging networks are climbing over each other to provide needed juice alongside roads and highways.

But they may relish even more not having to make many recharging stops along the way as their EV soaks up the bountiful energy coming straight from the sun.

Read more
Ford ships new NACS adapters to EV customers
Ford EVs at a Tesla Supercharger station.

Thanks to a Tesla-provided adapter, owners of Ford electric vehicles were among the first non-Tesla drivers to get access to the SuperCharger network in the U.S.

Yet, amid slowing supply from Tesla, Ford is now turning to Lectron, an EV accessories supplier, to provide these North American Charging Standard (NACS) adapters, according to InsideEVs.

Read more