Illustration of a whale-detection DMON buoy system

This whale-detection system consists of a surface buoy, stretch hose, and anchored bottom node. Whale sounds are detected by the digital acoustic monitoring instrument (DMON) attached to the bottom node, and information about those sounds is transmitted through the stretch hose to the buoy, from the buoy to a shore-side computer via satellite, and to a publicly accessible website in near real time. The buoy, stretch hose, bottom node, DMON, and whale detection software were developed by engineers and scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. (Illustration by Wildlife Conservation Society and Dr. Mark Baumgartner, © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)