Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Atlantic City Buoy
Study objectives
A DMON buoy was deployed 20 miles southeast of Alantic City, New Jersey on February 5, 2026 to monitor the presence of baleen whales in near real time by automatically detecting and identifying their calls. The buoy will help to improve monitoring and conservation efforts for whales by providing industry, scientists, managers, and the public with near real-time information on whale presence.
Principal Investigator: Mark Baumgartner (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
Analyst: Julianne Wilder
Platform location:
Daily analyst review:
| | Detected |
| Possibly detected |
| Not detected |
Time series:
The figure above shows daily whale occurrence for sei, fin, right
and humpback whales derived from analyst-reviewed call detections.
Occurrence is measured as the percentage of 15-minute summary periods
during a single day when whale calls are detected (red; periods when
the evidence for whale presence is convincing) or possibly detected
(yellow; periods when there is evidence for whale presence, but it is not
completely convincing). A summary period is a 15-minute period over which
an analyst determines if whales are detected, possibly detected or not
detected based on the protocol described in Baumgartner et al. (2019)
and Wilder et al. (2023). Please note that these time series should not
be considered an indication of whale abundance.
Diel plot:
The figure above shows when sei, fin, right and humpback whales were
detected (red), possibly detected (yellow), or not detected (gray) for
every 15-minute summary period reviewed by the analyst. The data are arranged
by hour of day (x axis) for each day of the deployment (y axis) to allow
evaluation of day-night (i.e., diel) patterns. The white lines indicate the
local time of sunrise and sunset.
Links to detailed information:
Automated detection data
Analyst notes
DMON/LFDCS diagnostics
Platform diagnostics
Sounds
What types of sounds are we monitoring? Find examples of the sounds right, fin, sei and humpback whales make here.
Questions
Please email Mark Baumgartner at mbaumgartner@whoi.edu. For a general desciption of the detection system and the autonomous platforms, visit robots4whales.whoi.edu.
Acknowledgements
The DMON buoy was prepared and deployed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Mooring Operations and Engineering (MOE) Group - special thanks to Jeff Pietro, Mackenzie Meier, Chris Basque, Nico Llanos, Jim Dunn, Jim Ryder, Kris Newhall, Don Peters, and John Kemp. Critical engineering support was provided by Jim Partan and Keenan Ball (WHOI). Support for the deployment and operation of the buoy was provided by New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
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