Is that a bottlenose I hear? Software that identifies different dolphin species by their whistles could improve the accuracy of surveys that monitor possible harm from fishing fleets.
These surveys are now performed by observing the animals from a boat. A fall in the number of sightings of a particular species is taken as a warning that it’s time to check what the fishermen are up to. But visual surveys pose problems, says Julie Oswald of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California. “Marine mammals spend most of their time out of sight and underwater, so observer teams…
