Martin Landro

As whales and ships travel through the seas, their motion slightly stretches or compresses the cables.

In a recent PNAS study, Martin Landrø and Robin André Rørstadbotn of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology used small deformations in fiber optic cables in a method called distributed acoustic sensing, or DAS, to detect and track the movement of blue whales.

The method has limitations, but may provide another way to track how whales move and behave across the globe.

Martin, why is it important to track whale movement, and why is it difficult?