Drones let B.C. researchers act as ‘fly on a wall’ to observe orca behaviour

A organisation of B.C. researchers have returned from a outing along a seashore with a trove of new photos, video and information collected by study torpedo whales from above.

The group of scientists from a University of B.C., along with collaborators from a Hakai Institute, spent Aug and Sep regulating drones and other collection to observe a feeding poise of northern and southern proprietor torpedo whales.

The idea was to try any tie between a accessibility of chinook salmon and a struggles of a southern residents.

Andrew Trites, executive a university’s Marine Mammal Research Unit, was a lead researcher on a trip, and pronounced a group is still sifting by a information to investigate a results.

But regulating drones authorised a scientists to constraint “amazing” images and video of a orcas from a new perspective.

“In some respects, we were like this fly on a wall, watching insinuate moments between a whales, and got to see them in a approach that really few people have ever had a event to do,” Trites said.

“We saw … witty things with a calf slapping a mom on her face with a tail, and a mom pulling a calf.”

He pronounced that after a career spent observation whales from a vessel on a water, he was vehement to get a some-more three-dimensional perspective of their behaviour.

He was quite struck by how mostly a orcas overwhelmed any other.

“I don’t consider that I’d ever entirely appreciated only how pleasing a whales are. It’s substantially one approach that they use to say this really clever family bond,” Trites said.

Watch: A northern proprietor torpedo whale swims with her calf

Scientists have theorized that a decrease in chinook bonds might be obliged for a bad health of a southern proprietor race in new years. The northern residents, meanwhile, are thriving.

The UBC researchers will use a information collected this summer to review a food accessible to a dual populations to see how most of a purpose chinook are personification in a troubles of a southern residents.

One vital worry as a scientists headed out on a H2O in Aug was either they’d even locate a glance of a involved population, Trites said. At a time, a whales hadn’t been speckled in dual months.

But when a investigate vessel left False Creek in Vancouver on day one and dull a indicate during UBC, they ran true into a southern proprietor orcas of J pod, feeding on salmon streamer into a Fraser River.

“We spent dual days with them, and we saw many encounters with a whales chasing chinook salmon and throwing chinook salmon,” Trites said.

He pronounced a scientists wish to be means to recover some of a formula of their investigate in a spring.

Article source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/killer-whale-drone-research-1.5345566?cmp=rss