Our very close association with Iain Kerr’s Ocean Alliance – the world’s foremost whale conservation organisation, admirably secures this field of our research and storytelling. Our two organisations, along with several others, are all part of a fraternity of ‘Share and Swap of images, stories, research and observation that guarantees that we all can preach from the same rich gospel and keep abreast of the daily influx of wonderful new insights into the goings on within our Oceans’ surface waters and the equivalent, less awe- inspiring, but still fascinating, stories from the freshwater habitats that we own and will thoroughly document.
Ocean alliance are leading the way with drone research technologies. They are currently using drones to capture the ‘snot’ from whales via drones – the whale snot catching drone!
The purpose of Ocean Alliance’s SnotBot program has been to explore and push the boundaries of this new research paradigm, determining what data can be collected with a drone and how best to collect it. Using SnotBot has many benefits when collecting biological samples from whales: it is non-invasive, we get a huge range of data, and it is relatively affordable.
SnotBot is a modified consumer drone that flies through the blow of a whale and collects exhaled “snot” on petri dishes. This blow contains a treasure trove of valuable biological information: DNA, stress and pregnancy hormones, microbiomes, and potentially many other biological compounds and indicators of the animal’s health and ecology. Best of all, the whale doesn’t even know we are there: This is a non-invasive tool that is safer for the animals and cheaper and more effective for the user.
