--- title: How Drones Are Helping Scientists Study and Protect Endangered Whales | TIME description: The ocean advocacy group Parley, working with Intel, has developed a drone equipped with petri dishes that flies through such whale spray, collects whatever samples it can get and brings them back to a research vessel for analysis. canonical: https://time.com/video/MRGeY59S/ og:title: How Drones Are Helping Scientists Study and Protect Endangered Whales og:description: The ocean advocacy group Parley, working with Intel, has developed a drone equipped with petri dishes that flies through such whale spray, collects whatever samples it can get and brings them back to a research vessel for analysis. og:url: https://time.com/video/MRGeY59S/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/MRGeY59S/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Drones Are Helping Scientists Study and Protect Endangered Whales twitter:description: The ocean advocacy group Parley, working with Intel, has developed a drone equipped with petri dishes that flies through such whale spray, collects whatever samples it can get and brings them back to a research vessel for analysis. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/MRGeY59S/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # How Drones Are Helping Scientists Study and Protect Endangered Whales > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: How Drones Are Helping Scientists Study and Protect Endangered Whales [Watch (HLS stream): How Drones Are Helping Scientists Study and Protect Endangered Whales](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/MRGeY59S.m3u8) (4:29)  _Published 2018-05-25. The ocean advocacy group Parley, working with Intel, has developed a drone equipped with petri dishes that flies through such whale spray, collects whatever samples it can get and brings them back to a research vessel for analysis._ --- Oct 10, 2023 4:32 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Scientists Think They May Have Found a New Kind of Killer Whale](/video/2x9I2ur9/) ### Scientists Think They May Have Found a New Kind of Killer Whale [This Type of Whale Could Become Extinct Soon](/video/yY51ZKim/) ### This Type of Whale Could Become Extinct Soon [How to Photograph a Whale](/video/2GUJJOs5/) ### How to Photograph a Whale --- ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] Life began in the ocean, and to this day, life still depends on it for our very survival. In fact, every second breath we tak is from the ocean. [ MUSIC ] And if our oceans die life on Earth will never be the same again. This looks so beautiful but the reality is the oceans are downhill from everything. All of humanity's garbage is washing down into our oceans. Saturday [ MUSIC ] That said, I'm a believer in small groups of people that can change the world. And I'd like to think we've got an example with us today. [ MUSIC ] Everybody loves whales, but it's amazing how little we know about them. [ MUSIC ] With more data about whales, we can learn how much pollution is in the water and how it's impacting our life on this planet. We're here now. Where the [ UNKNOWN ] straight again. [ UNKNOWN ] straight right here. And its always these remote places This is where you can find the interactions to speak to the health of the animals, the health of the eco system, and the health of humanity. [ MUSIC ] The biopsy data now is currently the standard way of getting samples from a whale. The trouble is, it's invasive. Also, there's an element of danger there. You've gotta get quite close to the animal. And then the last thing is it's hard to do. I was on the bough of a boat one day with a crossbow. And I almost got up to this whale and it dove. And as I was sitting there thinking, there has to be an easier way than this, A cloud of stinky snot came over me. And I thought, you know what? To be this stinky there's got to be something good going on, and hence, snot bot. Taking off. Three, two, one. I've got them. Now with smart bot, because we don't have to get the boat close to the whales, we can collect a lot more samples. We're finally peeking into the world of whales in a noninvasive manner and because of that, we're seeing things. And collecting data that we really never imagined before. I mean how cool is this? This is our first flight and I'm sorry chaps but we're dripping with snot here. Unbelievable. We're running two principal avenues of research here right now. One is the biological data and the second one is the physical attributes Tribute to the animal. That's a good full body shot. Look at the pecs on that guy. What's so exciting here is that the live video data stream is being processed on the boat and it's almost like a facial recognition software on the tail that's identifying the animal. Our artificial intelligence algorithm gives us amazing insights into other important data like whale weight and nutrition. We can even begin to compare the health of specific whales with their pod and oceans around them. Here is the raw video feed from the drone flight. And we can match that up with who it belongs So exact crowd in out database. Identifying it, seing how healthy it is, all happening in real time. Exactly. Incredible. Plus it's my favorite color. [ LAUGH ] We can tune the color. It's amazing to be flying over these animals and looking down. How graceful they are, how majestic they are. Man, look at that guy. [ SOUND ] With the collaboration between Intel and Parley for the Oceans, we're merging the worlds of technology and conservation. And the massive amount of data we are capturing could be the missing link. The health of our whales, the health of our seas, our health It's all interconnected. The research we are doing is vital to better understand our oceans and humanity's very survival. [ SOUND ] ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"How Drones Are Helping Scientists Study and Protect Endangered Whales","description":"The ocean advocacy group Parley, working with Intel, has developed a drone equipped with petri dishes that flies through such whale spray, collects whatever samples it can get and brings them back to a research vessel for analysis. 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