Ecotourists to become scientists by watching whales

Happywhale

Source: Happy Whale

With Happywhale, ecotourists can become citizen scientists

Happywhale is a global network of whale enthusiasts who contribute to a database of whales by taking and uploading pictures during whale spotting tours. Happywhale’s image processing algorithm matches photos with whales by identifying unique markings on the whales, thereby tracking their movement over time. The system has successfully matched photos of the same whale taken as far as 11,000 km apart and with 42 years of time lapse between the photos.

For ecotourists, Happywhale provides a way to learn about whales, while also contributing to science. Happywhale provides users with an interactive map that tracks whale movement, as well as a leader board that ranks users based on number of contributions. Happywhale also provides statistics on individual whales including number of times spotted, distance travelled and time between sightings. So far, 267,596 photos have been submitted and 34,267 individual whales have been identified.

Oceans

Oceans

Happywhale engages civillians to increase scientific knowledge about whales (14.A)

Partnerships

Partnerships

Happywhale facilitates scientific knowledge sharing and citizen acces and contribution to sciences (17.6)

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Categories

Attractions, experiences and shopping
Attractions, experiences and shopping
Tech
Tech

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