WhaleSpotter, an AI powered detection network, began scanning San Francisco Bay around the clock to find whale blows and heat signatures up to 2 nautical miles away, and it alerts mariners so they can slow or reroute, Thomas Hall said.
The system automatically flags potential sightings and trained marine mammal observers verify alerts before sending them by radio to ferry operators and vessel traffic controllers, and posting them on the Whale Safe website, Rachel Rhodes said.
One thermal camera has been installed on Angel Island and a second will be fixed aboard a ferry running between downtown San Francisco and Vallejo, creating a moving data platform, Rhodes added, and researchers hope to add cameras on the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.
The launch responds to a sharp rise in gray whale deaths in the Bay Area, with 21 dead gray whales found in the wider region last year, the highest number in 25 years, according to the Marine Mammal Center, and at least 40 percent of those were killed by ship strikes.
At least 10 more gray whales have died in the Bay Area so far this year, and scientists say those counts likely understate the toll because many carcasses sink or wash back out to sea before being found, researchers reported.
Gray whales migrate roughly 12,000 miles between breeding lagoons in Mexico and feeding grounds in the Arctic, but warming oceans and shifts in Arctic sea ice are disrupting their food web and leaving many malnourished during migration, a 2023 Science study found, Rhodes said.
NOAA has reported the eastern North Pacific gray whale population has fallen by half over the last 10 years, leaving about 13,000 whales, Douglas McCauley said, and many animals are now lingering inside the busy bay where traffic overlaps feeding areas.
Fishing Gear Threats And Management Responses
Warming coastal waters are also pushing humpback whales closer to shore, increasing overlap with the Dungeness crab fishery and the vertical lines that connect traps to surface buoys, which create entanglement risks, Kathi George said.
This spring regulators closed parts of the central California crab fishery to conventional gear to reduce overlap when whales are present, and California approved commercial use of ropeless pop up crab gear for the first time this spring to allow fishing while lowering entanglement risk.
Ropeless pop up systems store ropes and buoys on the seafloor until fishers trigger an acoustic release that brings gear to the surface, a change supporters say will cut whale interactions while letting fishers work, advocates reported.
NOAA confirmed 36 whales were entangled off the West Coast in 2024, the highest number since 2018, and scientists warn many entanglements go undocumented, the agency said.
Caitlynn Birch said managers must remain adaptive and science driven to reduce wildlife risk while keeping fishermen working, and California aims to lead with whale safe fishing technologies that could guide other fisheries.
