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    Photogrammetry of blue whales with an unmanned hexacopter

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    Durban_et_al-2016-Marine_Mammal_Science.pdf (523.5Kb)
    Date
    2016-05-06
    Author
    Durban, John W.  Concept link
    Moore, Michael J.  Concept link
    Chiang, Gustavo  Concept link
    Hickmott, Leigh S.  Concept link
    Bocconcelli, Alessandro  Concept link
    Howes, Gloria  Concept link
    Bahamonde, Paulina A.  Concept link
    Perryman, Wayne L.  Concept link
    LeRoi, Donald J.  Concept link
    Metadata
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    Citable URI
    https://hdl.handle.net/1912/8626
    As published
    https://doi.org/10.1111/mms.12328
    DOI
    10.1111/mms.12328
    Abstract
    Baleen whales are the largest animals ever to live on earth, and many populations were hunted close to extinction in the 20th century (Clapham et al. 1999). Their recovery is now a key international conservation goal, and they are important in marine ecosystems as massive consumers that can promote primary production through nutrient cycling (Roman et al. 2014). However, although abundance has been assessed to monitor the recovery of some large whale populations (e.g., Barlow et al. 2011, Laake et al. 2012) many populations are wide-ranging and pelagic, and this inaccessibility has generally impeded quantitative assessments of recovery (Peel et al. 2015). To augment traditional abundance monitoring, we suggest that photogrammetric measures of individual growth and body condition can also inform about population status, enabling assessment of individual health as well as population numbers. Photogrammetry from manned aircraft has used photographs taken from directly above whales to estimate individual lengths (Gilpatrick and Perryman 2008) and monitor growth trends (Fearnbach et al. 2011), and shape profiles can be measured to assess body condition to infer reproductive and nutritional status (e.g., Perryman and Lynn 2002, Miller et al. 2012). Recently, Durban et al. (2015) demonstrated the utility of an unmanned hexacopter for collecting aerial photogrammetry images of killer whales (Orcinus orca); this provided a noninvasive, cost-effective, and safe platform that could be deployed from a boat to obtain vertical images of whales. Here we describe the use of this small, unmanned aerial system (UAS) to measure length and condition of blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus), the largest of all whales.
    Description
    Author Posting. © Society for Marine Mammalogy, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of Society for Marine Mammalogy for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Marine Mammal Science 32 (2016):1510–1515, doi:10.1111/mms.12328.
    Collections
    • Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering (AOP&E)
    • Biology
    Suggested Citation
    Marine Mammal Science 32 (2016):1510–1515
     
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