Tracking technologies and instruments of cetology

From visual observation to the high-resolution tag

From paper photo-identification (1970s) to LIMPET satellite tags (1996), from bio-acoustic DTAGs (2003) to today’s photogrammetric drones: here is the development of the tools that made contemporary cetology possible.

Going further

Technology has transformed cetology: acoustic monitoring (PAM), sequenced genomes, citizen science and the history of discoveries.

From tagging to AI: 60 years of instrumental monitoring

The instrumental monitoring of cetaceans began in the 1960s with Discovery marks fired from a rifle into the blubber of the great whales. The turning point came with Argos tags in the 1990s (Bruce Mate, Oregon State University), then the more precise Iridium tags. The DTAG developed by Mark Johnson (WHOI), attached with suction cups, records depth, acceleration and sound.

On the visual side: the Crittercam of Greg Marshall (National Geographic), animal-borne cameras showing hunting from the animal’s own viewpoint; light drones for aerial photogrammetry; environmental DNA (eDNA), which detects the presence of a species from a litre of filtered water. And now AI applied to individual recognition (Happywhale), to the decoding of codas (the CETI project on the sperm whale) and to real-time thermal detection (WhaleSpotter in San Francisco).