In order to monitor the health of whales, scientists have been flying drones over Arctic waters to collect the creatures’ breath. The new technique has helped detect a deadly pathogen called cetacean morbillivirus in the Arctic for the first time.
The research team sampled whale breaths exhaled through blowholes from several species near Iceland, Norway, and the island nation of Cape Verde.
Their goal was to look for four pathogens, including bird flu viruses.
Studying whale breaths is a much less invasive way to keep track of their health. Researchers have traditionally collected samples from wild whales by getting close enough to shoot a dart gun and removing a small section of skin.
This method has allowed scientists to pinpoint outbreaks of cetacean morbillivirus in the Pacific, the Mediterranean, and off the coast of South America.
Cetacean morbillivirus is transmitted through direct contact and bodily fluids, including breath, shed skin, and urine. It can lead to high death rates in whales, dolphins, and porpoises. The virus often makes the animals vulnerable to other diseases.
For this study, the research team attached four petri dishes to a drone to collect over 70 breath samples from sperm whales, humpback whales, and fin whales.
They used live video footage to see when a whale looked like it was about to exhale. Hovering the drone above a whale turned out to be quite difficult, with researchers shouting instructions from the boat on where to fly the drone.
“In the moment, it’s like a lot of people just screaming ‘Fly lower’ or ‘Go right’ and ‘The whale is coming.’ So, it’s a lot of chaos on the boat,” said Helena Costa, a co-author of the study and a veterinarian at Nord University in Norway.
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“But of course, once you look back and you see the results and you see how well the method works, that’s a lot of fun.”
After collecting each whale’s breath, the team swabbed the petri dishes and analyzed them for cetacean morbilliviruses, herpesviruses, bird flu viruses, and Brucella bacteria.
The samples that were gathered near northern Norway revealed that two groups of humpback whales, showing no signs of sickness, and a sperm whale in poor health, had dolphin morbillivirus.
It was the first time that cetacean morbillivirus has been detected within the Arctic Circle, but that may be due to a lack of research in the area, not that the viruses have never been present there.
Breath samples from five humpback whale groups near Norway, Iceland, and Cape Verde tested positive for herpesvirus.
The researchers did not find Brucella or bird flu, but say that it’s still important to test for those pathogens because they can spread easily. Humans swimming in the waters occupied by cetaceans could catch illnesses if they’re not closely monitored.
The study was published in the journal BMC Veterinary Research.
By Emily Chan
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