San Francisco has launched an AI-powered whale-spotting network aimed at helping ships and ferries navigate around whales as the region faces a rise in gray whale deaths. The system, called WhaleSpotter, went live this week with the goal of tracking whales day and night and giving mariners earlier notice when the animals are nearby. Gray whales can be difficult to detect from vessels, and the effort is designed to fill that gap with a constant monitoring layer.
WhaleSpotter uses artificial intelligence to flag potential whale blows and heat signatures and then relies on trained marine mammal observers to verify sightings before alerts are issued. Those alerts are sent via radio to ferry operators and vessel traffic controllers, and detections are also posted publicly on the Whale Safe website. Researchers said the approach is meant to let crews adjust speed and course before a vessel gets close to animals.
The system scans the bay around the clock and can detect whale activity out to about 2 nautical miles away, according to the program’s description. Thomas Hall, director of operations for San Francisco Bay Ferry, said the alerts would allow operators to make “adjustments way before they get anywhere close.” Hall said the system would also help the operators track where whales spend time so routes could be adjusted during whale season.
The launch comes amid what researchers described as an alarming increase in gray whale deaths in the Bay Area. The Marine Mammal Center found 21 dead gray whales in the wider Bay Area last year, the highest number in 25 years, and the report also said at least 40% of those deaths were linked to ship strikes. The program described additional deaths in the Bay Area this year as well, noting that more whales have died so far this year.
Scientists involved with the initiative said those figures likely understate the total toll because some carcasses sink or are swept out to sea before they are found or reported. They said gray whales once had relatively predictable routes, migrating along the California coast over a roughly 12,000-mile (19,300-kilometer) journey between breeding lagoons in Mexico and feeding grounds in the Arctic. But they said more whales are now diverting into San Francisco Bay and lingering for days or even weeks, overlapping with busy navigation routes.
Rachel Rhodes, a project scientist at the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory who led the initiative, said the Bay’s shipping traffic creates an especially dangerous environment for whales. Rhodes said the area represents “the worst place possible in terms of all the ship traffic,” adding that the teams responding to strandings had run out of places to land dead whales. She and others linked the whales’ increased time in the estuary to climate-driven changes to the food web, citing a 2023 Science study that described how warming temperatures and Arctic sea-ice shifts disrupt the food gray whales rely on during summer feeding months.
The program also described how the system’s thermal cameras can operate through the night and in foggy conditions common in the bay, allowing it to keep monitoring where human observers may be limited. One camera is installed on Angel Island, and a second is planned on a ferry traveling between downtown San Francisco and Vallejo to create what Rhodes described as a “moving data collection platform.” The team said it hopes additional cameras on the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz could expand coverage across the bay.
While the WhaleSpotter effort focuses on avoiding ship strikes involving gray whales, the report also highlighted other whale risks tied to warming seas. A severe marine heat wave off the California coast has been shrinking the band of cold, nutrient-rich water where prey species such as krill and small fish thrive, scientists said. As offshore waters warm, humpback whales have increasingly followed prey closer to shore, raising overlap with coastal fishing.
The report said California’s Dungeness crab fishery uses vertical lines that connect traps on the seafloor to surface buoys, creating entanglement hazards for whales migrating or feeding along the coast. This spring, regulators again closed parts of the fishery off central California to conventional gear, a step described as more common in recent years as warming increases whale overlap with crab seasons. Kathi George of The Marine Mammal Center said humpbacks can interact with the gear, and if they get a line caught they may breach, roll, and end up entangling themselves.
Authorities and industry have also been moving toward different fishing gear designed to reduce risk to whales. The report said California approved commercial use of “ropeless pop-up” crab fishing gear for the first time this spring, allowing fishermen to harvest through the end of the season. Instead of buoy-tethered ropes, the system stores the ropes and buoys on the seafloor and uses an acoustic release to bring the gear to the surface when fishermen return. Supporters said the technology reduces whale entanglement risk.
As warming continues to alter ocean conditions and whale migration patterns, researchers said the overlap between whales, ships and fishing gear is likely to persist. Caitlynn Birch, Oceana’s Pacific campaign manager and a marine scientist, said management will need to remain adaptive and science-driven to reduce wildlife risk while keeping fishermen operating.