WHALE TALES

I DISLIKE multi-tasking but confess what follows is simultaneously a book review, a favored research activity and a technological report.

Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings, by Christopher Moore, HarperCollins, 2004. Both www.amazon.com and www.abebooks.com list it.

Christopher Moore’s book Fluke is a tale of whimsy, fantasty and mystery mixed with biological science—and science fiction. It’s set at a research station in Hawaii where one of the scientists sights a whale with “Bite Me” written across its tail.

Or does he? This whale tale continues above and below the ocean with nudged eye-winks toward Melville’s Moby-Dick and Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. It’s all in good fun, with a conclusion that is moving in more ways than one.

In particular, one of the book’s Acknowledgements cites the Whale Trust, an organization researching the humpback whale, its song and behavior.

The mission of the Whale Trust: “Bridging Marine Research with Marine Education & Conservation.” See http://www.whaletrust.org.

I’ve followed up with support in a modest but continuing way, and in response have received fascinating newsletters from this organization on the Hawaiian island of Maui.

One of the Whale Trust’s recent programs was working with an IMAX crew filming a humpback whale feature. It’s set for theaters in 2015.

An important element of this was experimentation with a new research tool for the Trust, a quadrocopter drone. See www.wp.me/p2ETap-SH for a description of this fuzzy-controlled four-rotor flying machine.

The Whale Trust is using this quadrocopter in researching humpback whales. Image from the Whale Trust.

The quadrocopter drone is fitted with camera, altimeter and other gizmos to serve as a remotely controlled observation platform. What’s more, notes Meagan Jones, Executive Director of the Whale Trust, this technology “helps us collect observations in a less invasive and more cost-effective manner.”

Magnificent beings, humpback whales are known for this breaching maneuver. An adult can be 39 to 52 ft. in length and weigh as much as 79,000 lb.

Whale Trust researchers are using the quadrocopter in monitoring individual humpback whales to determine how size and age affect social behavior. They’re able to study other behavioral interactions within social groups. In fact, the quadrocopter can even collect DNA samples from exhalation, the “blow,” of an individual whale.

Do you suppose that, one day, the researchers may encounter the adventure described in Fluke? ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2013