AI Identifies Mysterious Whale Calls

Hear from the NOAA Fisheries scientist who identified Bryde’s whales as the source of a new whale call—biotwang—in the North Pacific. With Google AI and machine learning, we sorted through thousands of hours of acoustic recordings to identify these calls.

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A whale raises its head out of the ocean's surface to breathe as a drone hovers overhead holding a bright orange tag A drone hovers over a Rice’s whale, ready to drop a suction cup tag to collect data. Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Ocean Alliance (Permit #21938)
MAFAC Members and NMFS Staff at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center Lab in Kodiak, AK. MAFAC members and NOAA Fisheries staff at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center Kodiak Lab. Credit: Laura Diederick/NOAA Fisheries.
In the foreground, a person wearing a black hoodie, red life jacket, and red rubber gloves stands on a ship and pulls on a rope. Two additional people are seen in the background, also wearing red life jackets. Former NOAA veteran intern Garret Engelke pulls in a surface trawling net on the Puget Sound with NOAA scientists.
A person wearing waders sits next to a river holding a large branch Veteran Colton Long monitors salmon and steelhead habitat in California’s Klamath River basin. Credit: NOAA Fisheries.
Three small, bare-bones boats moored off a mountainous island coastline U.S.-island fisheries typically consist of small-scale commercial or non-commercial—including subsistence, artisanal, and recreational fisheries. Credit: Adobe Stock