Rob Rector
Host of NPR's hit show HERE & NOW, Scott Tong, collaborated with MERR Instititute and Cape Water Tours to record acoustics from local dolphin populations in the Delaware Bay this past July, capturing the chatter from busy bottlenoses as they navigated around Cape Henlopen.
Tong, an American journalist and radio host was a former correspondent for Marketplace on APM, and now co-hosts Here & Now along with Robin Young and Deepa Fernandes. Tong was collecting sounds for a piece called "Using AI for facial recognition - or fin recognition - for whales and dolphins." For the report, Tong left on a zodiac boat with Cape Water Tours and MERR Naturalist Rob Rector in an attempt to capture the sounds of dolphin communication underwater.
Equipped with a hydrophone, Tong, Rector and crew were able to hear various clicks and squeals from visiting Atlantic Bottlenose dolphins for the piece, which also featured a conversation with Happywhale founder Ted Cheeseman. MERR works with Happywhale as part of its dolphin identification, which uses artificial intelligence to scan the contour of a dolphin's dorsal fin and look for any identifiable characteristics.
To hear the full episode, click below: