The Gay Head Lighthouse in Aquinnah has joined a marine safety network meant to reduce the number of vessel strikes for the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.
StationKeeper tracks vessel activity and sends messages directly from shore to vessels. Equipment installed at participating lighthouses makes it possible to warn mariners to slow down when they're traveling through right whale habitat.
Race Point Lighthouse in Provincetown is a StationKeeper site, and more recently, the Gay Head Lighthouse in Aquinnah has joined the network, Gay Head Lighthouse principal keeper Chris Manning said.
“[StationKeeper] communicates and integrates with NOAA [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] to receive whale location data, and in turn it sends that information and the speed restriction zones to ships passing nearby,” he said. “As far as our role at the lighthouse, we host the system, but the system really operates and runs all on its own.”
Moses Calouro developed StationKeeper through the company MotionInfo, at which he is the CEO, and tested the system in Cape Cod Bay from his home in Orleans. He explained what it looks like for a mariner to receive a message from StationKeeper.
“If you're on a vessel and you get one of these, you'll know you received it because it's pretty abrupt,” Calouro said. “It shows up on your screen, and you also get an audible alarm, so you'll know it's something important when you receive it.”
So far, Calouro said, mariners have been responsive to StationKeeper messages.
“It's a rare occurrence when they would get one of these from shore specifically, so it has an impact,” he said. “When we message vessels, some actually respond to us—‘we're going to comply, we're slowing down.' We've actually had military vessels slow down as well.”
North Atlantic right whales are primarily threatened by vessel strikes and entanglements, according to the Massachusetts Department of Marine Fisheries. Right whales are migratory and return to coastal Massachusetts each year to feed from early winter to late spring.
Calouro’s goal is to have 70 StationKeeper sites set up by this upcoming North Atlantic Right Whale season, and eventually, to have 130 sites total. Calouro said he wants the system to eventually be able to let vessels know about individual right whale sightings, too.
But in the meantime, Manning expects the Gay Head StationKeeper site to make an impact on its own.
“The waters to the south and west of the Vineyard have become home to several wind farms that have been erected at a pretty quick pace,” he said. “So with the increase in marine traffic and the increase in those windmills, we're at a prime location to really be an active part in that protection of the right whale species.”
As a member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe, Manning said he was excited to get involved with a project that could help right whales.
“The right whales maintain a very important and significant aspect in our culture. We consider them to be ancestors of our people,” Manning said. “And so when Moses approached me about hosting the StationKeeper system, we were happy to get on board.”
