Drones are being developed at an increasingly rapid pace and privacy watchdogs are concerned about the way the unmanned aircraft might be used. But for one group of scientists ramping up the use of drones, there will be no complaints from the study subjects: large whales.
Wayne Perryman, a marine biologist for NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center, recently returned from a pioneering spy expedition to the South Pacific, where two drones were tested in the study of sperm whales.
Perryman was among the first scientists to adapt military spy technology to monitor dolphin populations in the 1980s (when thousands of dolphins were dying in tuna nets).
He had also used unmanned aircraft to study penguins and leopard seals on land.
But airplane research is costly, invasive and impractical. Large planes cannot be flown closely to the mammals without altering their behavior.
Much smaller, quieter drones, on the other hand, are inexpensive and can be flown almost directly overhead. (Said Perryman via email: "I tend to call them unmanned aerial systems (UAS) rather than drones because of the knee-jerk negative reaction in some about drones.")
In the South Pacific off New Zealand, however, Perryman learned first-hand the challenges associated with piloting unmaned aircraft from a small research boat (large boats cannot get close enough to the whales).
"Catching the bird from an active deck was a bit like trying to catch a knuckleball bare-handed," Perryman said in an NOAA report on the drone aspect of the expedition. He was working with Don LeRoi, an engineer with Aerial Imaging Solutions.
Like so many drones being produced today, theirs was built using inexpensive electronics and consumer-grade cameras. Because of the knuckleball effect, and at least one of the small vessels ending up in the water, the two are designing a model that's entirely waterproof and designed for splash landings, for retrieval by net.
Perryman also is planning a second mission, during which he intends to send the drone directly over the whales' blowholes and through their towering plumes, as they're exhaling. The mist contains various cells and enzymes that can reveal a DNA profile, hormone levels and other indications of a whale's health and physiology.
"If you're going to manage a population of whales, you need to know more than just how many there are," Perryman said. "You have to know something about the condition of the animals in the population." Drones, it seems, will become the ideal spy tools to help determine just that.
--Photos: Top image shows Wayne Perryman attempting to catch an incoming drone. Third image shows Perryman (left) and Don Leroi inspecting an unmanned aircraft. Credit Moira Brown/New England Aquarium. Middle image shows view from a drone. Courtesy of Wayne Perryman/NOAA Fisheries
--For more information on the Sperm Whales New Zealand project, check out the expedition blog.
--Note: This is a reprint from a Pete Thomas post on GrindTv.com