My name is Dr Iain Kerr. I am the CEO of Ocean Alliance, and i'm the founder and
driving force behind Snotbot.
The idea behind Snotbot is to collect physical and biological data and video and
photographs from a whale
without the whale knowing.
And we needed a drone to collect that data.
The exhaled breath condensates, the snot that whale is blowing out,
is likely to be full of all of these wonderful chemical markers that can give us
insights into the lives of whale. From DNA, pesticides, metals pregnancy hormones,
stress hormones. But what we want to do is focus on the science. And we want
somebody else to be giving us the tools. And we need to do that without
interfering with their lifestyles. And that is what DJI is doing. So we take a
regular DJI drone.
We put a little platform and to that we attach a pole. Then at the bottom of
the pole we have our fabric, and that gets a collector closer to the blow.
It's great for us to be able to say, OK, for this experiment, we really need then
body like the Inspire. OK, they've got one.
Or, we need a hexacopter. OK, we’ve got Spreading Wings.
We did see some snot arriving on the top of the drone.
So we basically put three petri dishes on the top of the Inspire 1.
It was amazing. . When drone came back, I was stunned.
We were literally dripping with snot in these dishes. We can go out and in one day,
collect 20 samples. It would take me a week with a 93-foot boat with 12 people
to do that.
Looking at the largest animal that ever existed on this planet, just flying down
along its body, and then having it blow into the drone and seeing on camera all
the snot.
I mean wow. And then being able to do the analysis to look for all the
different chemicals.
Just a regular photo can give us photo ID. We can recognize individuals.
With video footage we can observe intimate behavior without having a giant
helicopter or an airplane which is expensive and dangerous.
This is going to give us a whole new perspective. We can help conserve this
animal with a 3,000 dollar drone, and a few drops of snot.
These are clearly incredibly intelligent animals, curious animals. They've lived
here for millions of years.
You know,
if you look in the eye of a whale, if you see a mother playing with its calf, it
touches you.
I think we are very focused on ourselves.
And the reality is our own self-interest should have us focusing more on the environment
around us. As a species
our future is in our oceans we need healthy oceans of the largest mediating
force on the planet. By understanding how humanity impacts upon the oceans of
wildlife means we'll be able to better conserve it.
Everyone can make a difference. And I hope I'm living proof of that.