I thought I'd share a little about a cool project we helped with at Lime Kiln a couple of weeks ago (July 6-9). Jim Thomson, Joe Graber, and Brian from the Applied Physics Lab at the University of Washington, came up to Lime Kiln to test out the feasibility of using infrared and thermal cameras to detect whales at night. During the week they installed 3 cameras; an infrared camera, a web camera, and a black and white camera.
Why, you ask, is it important to detect whales at night with infrared cameras when we have hydrophones that do that? Well, the reality is that the resident orcas make some awesome sounds, but they don't always make sounds, so it would be nice to be able to detect them even when they aren't calling. This is most important in regards to marine renewable energy projects. If new projects are approved there will be a need to monitor marine mammals in their vicinity during the day and night.
During the week that they were here, the whales obliged by going past the light house several times during the night which allowed for some pretty nice videos and some great data that Joe will be working on for his masters degree. Watch the video below to see one pass by on the night of July 7th. There are two animals that surface first, and if you look closely you'll see a calf come up just to the left of the animals.
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