Drones to help leave whales alone

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-08-14 04:00

International

Cropped image. Vogt et al., 2025, PLOS One, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

We’ve learned a lot more about whales in recent decades thanks to tagging methods that track their behaviour and health, but putting a tag on a whale is logistically challenging and costly. US researchers report a new “tap and go” approach using drones. When they tested them on sperm whales in the Caribbean, they could stick a suction tag on a whale in around 75 seconds on average. They say this makes for a faster and less invasive technique that doesn’t require boats to get close to the gentle giants.

Multimedia

Tagging method overview (illustration)

In-field deployment.

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Journal/
conference: PLOS One

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Harvard University, USA

Funder: This study was financially supported by Project CETI (https://www.projectceti.org) via Dalio Philanthropies (https://www.daliophilanthropies.org), OceanX (https://oceanx.org), Sea Grape Foundation (http://www.seagrapefoundation.org), Virgin Unite (https://unite.virgin.com) and Rosamund Zander/Hansjorg Wyss in the form of grants received by DFG, SG and RW through The Audacious Project: a collaborative funding initiative housed at TED (https://www.audaciousproject.org). This study was also financially supported by the National Geographic Society (https://www.nationalgeographic.org/society) in the form of a grant (NGS-72337T-20) received by DFG, SG and RW. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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