Robotic buoys developed to keep Atlantic right whales safe

A Cape Cod science center and one of the world’s largest shipping businesses are collaborating on a project to use robotic buoys to protect a vanishing whale from lethal collisions with ships. A lab at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution developed the technology, which uses buoys and underwater gliders to record whale sounds in near real time. The robotic recorders can give scientists, mariners and the public an idea of the location of rare North Atlantic right whales. Now, French shipping giant CMA CGM is working with Woods Hole to deploy two of the robotic buoys off of Norfolk, Virginia, and Savannah, Georgia.