Whale radar under test

27th October 2002


A life-saving "whale radar" is to be tested in a busy Spanish sea lane where up to 10 whales are killed by ship collisions each year.
The system uses sophisticated acoustic buoys to spot whales and warn ship captains of their position.
Dr Michel Andre has spent 10 years developing the Whale Anti-Collision System (WACS), which has won him an innovation award.
He plans to create a safety corridor for endangered sperm whales in waters between the Spanish islands of Tenerife and Gran Canaria.
The sea surrounding the Canary Islands, 100 kilometres off the north-west coast of Africa, is home to 27 species of whales and dolphins. This includes a resident population of 300 to 350 sperm whales.
Today the animals are more at risk from shipping accidents than whalers. Although they can descend to depths of 3,000ft, like all whales they have to come to the surface to breathe - sometimes in the path of ships.
On average more than 120 ships service the ports of Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, and Santa Cruz, Tenerife, each day.
Post mortems conducted on two beached sperm whales killed in a 1996 collision revealed an inner ear problem which stopped them hearing the low-frequency sounds of ships' engines.
Dr Andre believes the animals are suffering irreversible hearing loss due to man-made marine noise. As a result, their echo-location systems were desensitised leaving them "blind" to approaching ships. Experiments suggest alarms or bleepers on ships designed to alert whales have been largely ineffective and may even damage whales' hearing even further.
Therefore, instead of warning whales of ships in their vicinity, WACS alerts shipping to the presence of whales. Working with colleagues at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria's Marine Mammal Conservation Research Unit, Dr Andre designed a system consisting of underwater microphones and sensors

ANANOVA - Story filed: 15:35 Sunday 27th October 2002





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