North Atlantic right whales usually visit waters off Canada's east coast but numbers were down last year.
Photo Credit: Courtesy: New England Aquarium

Unmanned gliders will search for endangered whales

Unmanned gliders will soon scour the waters off Canada’s Atlantic coast to try to find out where the North American right whales have gone.  The 60-tonne mammals are among the world’s most endangered marine mammals.

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Sleek yellow gliders will soon cruise the waters off Nova Scotia in an effort to track down one of the world’s most endangered marine mammals. © rightwhales.neaq.org

The population has gone up from 300 in the 1990s to about 500 more recently, possibly because of efforts to have ships avoid the areas the whales frequent. Right whales often travel into Canada’s Bay of Fundy in summer to feed, as well as the Rosewater Basin off the coast of the province of Nova Scotia.

Ship strikes, nets are big dangers

But numbers were down last summer and Canadian and U.S. scientists have decided to deploy the gliders to try to locate them.

The ultimate goal is to try to protect the whales from ship strikes and entanglement in fishing nets.

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