Are you a whale watcher? Have you ever photographed whales during your nature travels? Did you know your amateur efforts can be part of a global project helping to protect whales and ocean environments? That’s the subject of today’s webinar, as Expedition Leader Lilia Gonzalez talks with conservation biologist Ted Cheeseman, co-founder and head of Happywhale, which enlists citizen scientists to help identify marine mammals for fun and for research. Happywhale uses state-of-the-art image processing algorithms to match whale photos with scientific collections. This newly developed technology makes global whale tracking more possible than ever. Each individual mammal has a story to tell: Where will this humpback migrate this winter to give birth? Did the whale with scars from an orca attack survive another year? What happened to the entangled whale I saw in the news? To answer such questions, unique identifiable markings on individual animals allow scientists to track movements and life histories over time without disturbing the whales. You submit your photos, learn about the whales they match, and become a direct contributor to the creation of important conservation science and education!

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