Hexacopter soars high above killer whales to study their fitness

All Killer Whales in BC are all at risk (Threatened or Endangered) and by getting the images from on-high, it is possible to better determine if the whales are thin and even if they are pregnant. This provides vital data such as being able to know if pregnancies did not go to term and how much the fitness of ???Resident??? Killer Whales depreciates in years of low Chinook salmon abundance. ???Resident??? Killer Whales are inshore fish-eating populations culturally programmed to be ???Chinook-aholics??? and their survival has been proven to be directly correlated to the abundance of Chinook salmon. Examples of the data obtained via hexacopter, revealing good news and bad news. The bad news first . . . When Killer Whales are in dire condition and lose too much fat, this manifests as ???peanut head???, sunken areas near the eye patches. I see this as the equivalent as sunken cheeks in the gaunt faces of underweight humans. The images obtained with the hexacopter revealed that ???Northern Resident??? Killer Whales A37 and I63 were in extremely poor condition and, in fact, the whales disappeared from their matrilines (families) shortly after the images were taken. ???Resident??? Killer Whales stay with their families their entire lives so absence from the matriline most often means death. The good news . . . Data collected also revealed fat calves, robust nursing mothers, and pregnant females. Below, Dr. John Durban shares an image of 34-year-old ???I4??? of the I15 matriline of ???Northern Residents??? revealing that she is pregnant again. The researchers reported that the regulatory paperwork needed to get approval for this research weighed more than the hexacopter did and that they were glad that this was the case. This research methodology, when applied correctly, is a wonderful example of how advances in technology can lead to advances in knowledge in a way that is benign to wildlife. The sky???s the limit in how we let this knowledge impact our day-to-day actions to improve the health of the marine environment for which Killer Whales serve as powerful sentinels. More…