As gray whales face an unprecedented collision crisis in San Francisco Bay, a new artificial intelligence detection network has been deployed this week to alert ship operators in real time when whales are nearby—a technological intervention born from a troubling reality: marine mammals are dying at alarming rates in one of the world's busiest shipping corridors.
The WhaleSpotter system represents a direct response to a conservation emergency. Last year, 21 dead gray whales were found in the wider Bay Area, the highest number in 25 years, according to The Marine Mammal Center. At least 40% were killed by ship strikes. At least 10 more have died in the Bay Area so far this year. Scientists caution these figures likely underestimate the true toll because many whale carcasses sink or are swept back out to sea before they are found or reported.
The Crisis Behind the Technology
The gray whale population collapse underscores how climate change is reshaping marine ecosystems in ways that pit human commerce directly against wildlife survival. Gray whales migrate on a roughly 12,000-mile journey between breeding lagoons in Mexico and feeding grounds in the Arctic. Increasingly, they are diverting into San Francisco Bay and lingering for days or weeks inside the crowded estuary—a shift scientists increasingly link to climate change.
Warming temperatures and shifts in sea ice in the Arctic are disrupting the food web gray whales rely on during summer feeding months, according to a 2023 study in Science, leaving many malnourished during migration. The consequences are stark: the eastern North Pacific gray whale population, once hailed as a conservation success story after rebounding from commercial whaling and being removed from the Endangered Species Act 32 years ago, has since plummeted, decreasing by half over the last 10 years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Just 13,000 remain.
Rachel Rhodes, a project scientist at the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory who led the WhaleSpotter initiative, described the geographic trap whales now face: "It's the worst place possible in terms of all the ship traffic." She added that there have been so many collisions that "the teams responding to strandings said they ran out of places to even land dead whales."
Many whales now concentrate in a high-traffic corridor between Angel Island, Alcatraz and Treasure Island, directly overlapping with ferry routes and shipping lanes. This convergence of whale vulnerability and human maritime activity creates a management challenge that no single actor—not shipping companies, not regulators, not conservation groups—can solve alone.
How the System Works
WhaleSpotter uses thermal cameras and artificial intelligence to scan the water around the clock for whale blows and heat signatures up to 2 nautical miles away. The system automatically flags potential whale sightings, which are then verified by trained marine mammal observers before alerts are sent by radio to ferry operators and vessel traffic controllers and posted publicly on the Whale Safe website.
Thomas Hall, director of operations for San Francisco Bay Ferry, said mariners "will be able to make adjustments way before they get anywhere close." He added, "It will also allow us to track data over time and see where the whales are camping out so we can adjust our routes during whale season to avoid those areas completely."
Researchers noted that the San Francisco Bay network is the first to directly integrate land-based and vessel-mounted detections with official mariner alerts, allowing whale sightings to be relayed in near real time to ships navigating the bay. One camera was installed on Angel Island and a second will soon be fixed aboard a ferry traveling between downtown San Francisco and Vallejo. Scientists hope additional cameras on the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz could eventually expand coverage across the bay.
Douglas McCauley, director of the Benioff lab, said the first hours of testing produced an immediate flood of detections: "Suddenly to have a full sense of how much whale activity is in this space honestly put me a little bit on edge," and added, "But we're going to use that data and we're going to be smart about how we use that space and share it with the whales." Researchers said the system's biggest advantage is constant monitoring because thermal cameras can operate through the night and in many foggy conditions common in the bay.
A Broader Pattern of Conflict
The ship strike crisis is not isolated to San Francisco Bay. A severe marine heat wave lingering off the California coast is shrinking the band of cold, nutrient-rich water where krill, anchovies and sardines thrive. As offshore waters warm, humpback whales are increasingly following that prey closer to shore, where California's Dungeness crab fishery operates. The fishery uses tens of thousands of vertical lines that connect traps on the seafloor to surface buoys, creating entanglement hazards for whales migrating and feeding along the coast.
This spring, regulators again closed parts of the fishery off central California to conventional gear, a measure that has become increasingly common in recent years as warming waters increase whale overlap with crab fishing seasons. Thirty-six whales were confirmed entangled off the West Coast in 2024, the highest number since 2018, according to NOAA, though scientists caution most cases go undocumented.
Kathi George, director of cetacean conservation biology at The Marine Mammal Center, explained the mechanics of entanglement: "Humpbacks are curious and they'll scratch their backs on the gear. If they get a line caught on their body, they'll breach and they'll roll and end up entangling themselves." Whales can drag heavy gear for months, unable to dive or feed properly, leading to starvation, infection and drowning.
Technological and Regulatory Innovation
California approved commercial use of ropeless pop-up crab fishing gear for the first time this spring, allowing fishermen to continue harvesting through the end of the season. Instead of floating surface buoys tethered to traps, the system stores ropes and buoys on the seafloor until fishermen return and trigger an acoustic release that brings the gear to the surface. Supporters say the technology allows fishermen to continue harvesting crab while dramatically reducing the risk to whales.
Caitlynn Birch, Oceana's Pacific campaign manager and a marine scientist, said, "We will have to continue to be adaptive and science driven in terms of our management to reduce wildlife risk and keep fishermen on the water." She added, "California has been a national leader in developing whale-safe fishing technologies and we hope that model can help guide other fisheries on the West Coast and nationally."
Why This Matters:
The WhaleSpotter deployment reflects a critical moment in how human societies manage the collision between economic activity and environmental protection. Gray whales face a compounding crisis: climate change is disrupting their food sources in the Arctic, forcing them into busy shipping lanes and fishing areas where they face collision and entanglement. Rather than choosing between maritime commerce and whale survival, the technological and regulatory innovations described here—real-time detection systems, ropeless fishing gear, and dynamic route management—demonstrate that protecting vulnerable species requires continuous adaptation and investment in science-driven solutions. As climate change continues to reshape ocean conditions and whale migration patterns, the overlap between whales, ships, and fishing gear is expected to persist. The question facing policymakers and industry is whether institutions will continue to develop and scale these protections, or whether economic pressures will override conservation priorities. The data emerging from WhaleSpotter's first week of operation will be crucial to understanding whale behavior in the bay and informing future management decisions that affect both marine ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.