FALL 2023 | 17 lar to SnotBot in its simplicity. “We ended up with a 3-D printed lawn dart that can hold a tag,” says Zadra. “We drop it from the drone at a certain height and it attaches to the whale with a suction cup.” The tags are designed to fall off after a certain length of time and get collected for analysis. “It’s like putting an iPhone on the back of a whale,” Zadra says. “If you’re studying whales without tags, all that you are seeing is the 10% of their life when they surface. But most of their life is spent underwater— feeding and socializing and traveling.” Zadra has studied many whale species. He first tested data tagging with a drone in Mexico on the blue whale, the largest animal on the planet. He studies the endangered North Atlantic right whales, which feed every year in Massachusetts and get caught in fishing gear and lobster traps. There are only 350 left in the world. Zadra’s background may be in engineering, but he is now a scientist, environmentalist, boat mechanic and boat captain. There’s just one problem—he gets seasick. But, he says, motion sickness medicine works wonders. —Jodi Duckett
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