LAUSR

When Iain Kerr, CEO of the Ocean Alliance, a whale and ocean conservation group in Gloucester, MA, USA, went on a voyage to collect data on the effects of contaminants on whales, he took a crossbow with him. Sitting at the boom of his group's research vessel The Odyssey, a 29‐meter steel hulled ketch, Kerr shot darts into the flanks of blue whales. The darts collected biopsy samples weighing a few grams from an 18‐meter and 70‐ton blue whale. Kerr and his colleagues used the tissue samples to look for contaminants and to build a database of whale DNA to determine family relationships and track populations. > The advent of the drone for conservation and research is akin to the invention of the microscope for cellular biologists. Biopsy darts are old and busted. Kerr is now testing a newer, noninvasive tool to track whales: drones. “People have done this in expensive airplanes and expensive helicopters. But then you're always stressed out because you're ripping up hundred dollar bills and risking your life”, he said. But Kerr was struck with the idea of using drones to collect DNA and microbiota from the blow, the slimy collection of mucus, water, and cells spurting through the blowhole at the top of a cetacean's head through which the animals breathe air. From 20 meters away, he would be drenched with smelly mucus from the whales’ blow. “I thought there had to be a better way. Why not collect the biomass from the blow?” he said. Kerr and his team now send drones aloft to swoop at about 3.5 meters through the blue whale's blow, which reaches up to 10 meters into the air (Fig 1). “I was recently hovering above a blue whale, the largest animal that has ever lived on this planet. The drone …