Researchers using an AI photo-scanning tool similar to facial recognition have learned that there’s been a 20% decline in North Pacific Ocean humpback whale populations over the past decade. The researchers pointed to a climate change related heat wave as a possible culprit. The findings, published this week in Royal Society Open Science, used the artificial intelligence-powered image detection model to analyze more than 200,000 photographs of humpback whales taken between 2001 and 2022.
Facial recognition models used to identify humans have faced sustained criticism from researchers and advocates who say the models struggle to identify accurately identity nonwhite people. In this case, the model scanning humpback whale photos was trained to spot and recognize unique identifiers on a whale’s dorsal fin. These identifiers function like a one-of-a-kind whale fingerprint and can consist of marks, variations in pigmentation, scarring, and overall size. Researchers used successful photo matches to inform estimates for humpback whale populations over time.
[ Related: The government is going to use facial recognition more. That’s bad. ]
Images of the whale tails, captured by scientists and whale watchers alike, are stored by a nonprofit called HappyWhale, which described itself as “largest individual identification resource ever built for marine mammals.” HappyWhales encourages everyday “citizen scientists” to take photos of whales they see and upload them to its growing database. The photos include the data, and location of where the whale was spotted.
From there, users can track a whale they photographed and contribute to a growing corpus of data researchers can use to more accurately understate the species’ population and migration patterns. Prior to this AI-assisted method, experts had to comb through individual whale tail photographs looking for similarities with their named eye, a process both painstaking and…
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