A beacon for whales

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While maybe not the important aids to navigation that they once were, lighthouses up and down the East Coast — including in Aquinnah — have become a beacon for preservation of the North Atlantic right whale.

Maritime Information Systems, an Orleans-based group, in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), recently produced a technology called a StationKeeper, which delivers targeted safety messages to vessels within right whale habitats. At the end of September, Gay Head Light Keeper Chris Manning — also an Island police officer, select board member, and Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe member — welcomed lighthouse keepers from around the region to install one of its own StationKeepers in Aquinnah.

Manning, after the installation, said that he’s honored to be able to host the technology at the lighthouse, noting that right whales have historically been significant to the tribe culturally.

“Losing even one right whale is devastating to the species as a whole. It’s really great to be a part of a program that is actively working to preserve the species,” Manning said, adding that there have been promising results from the nascent technology.

The StationKeeper looks like a small, 20-pound waterproof box with nautical themes and calligraphy. But inside, using an automated identification system (AIS), there are the makings of a system that, using radio waves, will ping boaters with an automated alert that they are traveling too fast within federally imposed speed-restriction zones. 

The system is using technology that is already regularly used; larger vessels are required to have an AIS system on board to avoid collisions, while most other boats use it to receive navigational information. 

The idea is to reduce ship strikes on right whales, which is a primary cause of death for the species. The whales are at heightened risk for vessel strikes because they spend a lot of time close to the water’s surface, and they can be difficult to spot from a boat due to their dark color and lack of a dorsal fin.

And use of the technology comes at a critical time. The latest NOAA reporting estimates that there are only about 370 right whales remaining, including just 70 reproductively active females. NOAA estimates that the number of new calves born in recent years has been below average.

Moses Calouro, CEO of Maritime Information Systems, which produces the StationKeeper, said the invention is born out of frustration that there hasn’t been meaningful change for the species. “There has never been a good solution,” Calouro said.

In order to try and protect the species, NOAA has implemented speed restrictions in place when right whales may be in the water. Vessels 65 feet or longer are required to travel at 10 knots or less within what the federal agency calls “seasonal management areas” (SMAs) along the East Coast. NOAA also encourages boats under 65 feet long to travel less than 10 knots in the area as well. There are a number of speed zones around the Cape that are in place from January until the end of July; there is also a management area extending from Aquinnah to Long Island where the speed restrictions are in place from November until the end of April, and zones down the coast to Florida.

But awareness of the speed restrictions is not always present. To help keep boaters aware of the rules, the StationKeeper sends automated messages to boaters within the speed zones if they are traveling over the 10-knot requirement. It also issues a warning when a boat is entering the zone and leaving. The technology has the capacity to let boaters know if and when a whale is in their vicinity.

Calouro said they initially set up a test for the StationKeeper in the Cape Cod Canal that successfully pinged to boaters in 2023. A pilot program kicked off in 2024 at the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, and Calouro points to data from the test that it has been promising. The sanctuary is a feeding ground for right whales, and over 20 days, researchers found that nearly 85 percent of vessels slowed to 10 knots after getting alerts from the StationKeeper, and stayed below the threshold while traveling through the speed zone. 

Since then, and with help from the U.S. Coast Guard and NOAA, the technology has been installed in lighthouses from Jackson, Fla., to Maine, including Rockport, Race Point Light in Provincetown, Sandy Neck Lighthouse in Barnstable, and on Nantucket.

Maritime Information Systems is working with nonprofits, businesses, and government entities to create a whole network of AIS systems and, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare, they are hoping to get the technology installed in 130 locations.

The Gay Head Light is just one of those locations, and Manning and others in Aquinnah are excited to join a solution to protect the critically endangered right whale. Manning said there is no cost at all to the town of Aquinnah. 

“We’re glad to be a part of this,” he said.