Whale Alert - Advancing Whale Conservation Through Mobile Technology & Citizen Science

Entering its 6th year, the Whale Alert app has made significant contributions to whale conservation for the US and Canada. Whale Alert provides mariners location and time aware information on whale speed restrictions, areas... [ view full abstract ]

Entering its 6th year, the Whale Alert app has made significant contributions to whale conservation for the US and Canada. Whale Alert provides mariners location and time aware information on whale speed restrictions, areas to be avoided, and recommended routes to reduce the risk of ship strikes via both Android and Apple supported mobile applications.  It also provides all users a direct way to electronically report whale sightings. In the case of dead, entangled, or stranded whales Whale Alert routes sightings automatically to the appropriate response networks. Since inception, Whale Alert has collected over 7,000 whale sightings.  

In 2017, major new capabilities were added in the form of curated human sightings and acoustic whale detections from autonomous gliders and buoys, app translation into French (with support for adding other languages), addition of North Pacific right whale critical habitats and native fishing areas in Alaska, and the addition of a new whale zone in the Indian Ocean.  This year, Whale Alert will be expanded to support effort-based data collection via individual user and organizational accounts. Whale Alert is a collaborative effort led by NOAA, IFAW, and Conserve.IO.