Whale Trails – a Smart Phone Application for Whale Tracking

Whale watching is a substantial industry that takes place across the globe. With the abundant use of smartphones and smart technology, Maynecke proposed to implement an application that can record location in lat/long in addition to bearing. This data along with corresponding photographs can then be sent to GIS systems such as ArcGIS and Quantum GIS to be processed. Multiple submissions of a single encounter can be used within ArcGIS to calculate a highly accurate track using intersection points.

Such applications that utilize GIS will be integral to collecting consistent and accurate data regarding marine species. A focus of this project were humpback whales, which have highly identifiable fluke edges and patterns that can be used for identification. Given the increasing effects of climate change, tracking shifts in migratory patterns using GIS will be integral in assessing climate impacts on cetaceans.

Maynecke, Jan-Olaf. “Whale Trails – a Smart Phone Application for Whale Tracking.” International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software. June, 2014. p. 8.