Happywhale
Where: Antarctic, Arctic
Platform: Ship, small boat, shore
Level: Easy
What is it all about?
Happywhale was launched in 2015 and is a platform collecting photos of marine mammals taken by citizen scientists from all over the world for photo-ID purposes.
So far Happywhale has recorded over 220,000 whale encounters from over 9,000 participants worldwide, with over 5,300 individual cetaceans identified in the Antarctic and 1,400 in the Arctic.
Photos submitted to Happywhale are shared with a large network of researchers to improve our understanding of marine mammals. The images provide valuable information on, for example, whale migration patterns and population status. These studies are becoming increasingly important with the ongoing recovery of whale species since the end of commercial whaling and current conservation issues such as ship strikes, entanglement in fishing gear and population responses to climate change.
Project partners: Happywhale’s data is shared with a wide collaboration of research groups, depending on species. A major goal of Happywhale is to make data available for sound management decisions and protection of the remote polar regions. By sharing your photos through Happywhale and encouraging guests to participate, you are automatically supporting their research projects.
Some of the key players for polar regions are listed below:
Antarctic Killer Whale Photo Identification Catalogue
Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission (IWC)
WHALE:SWIM Project – Southern Right Whales in South Georgia
Project website: https://happywhale.com
