52-hertz whale

There's at least one company, Saildrone, operating out of Alameda, CA (SF Bay Area and one endpoint of the famed Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9958407>), which might be suited to that. Its 23--65-foot sail-driven, solar-powered drones are tasked with anti-submarine warfare (most likely largely acoustic detection, so well-suited to cetacean observation, which is how whalesong was discovered in the first place), operate autonomously, over wide-ranging areas of ocean, for long periods.

They're mentioned in your link, some additional references:

<https://www.saildrone.com/>

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saildrone_(company)>

Earlier HN discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16242380> (2018, 5 comments).

I've mentioned the firm a few times: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...>

The cool thing about cheap sea drones is that they are still incredibly expensive to operate. Like, the only cost center they remove is the crew which is negligible compared to fuel, transport, and equipment.

although, just because we can, is it something we should?

Hopefully it is accepted by the other whales, even if it communicates in a different frequency. My quick research shows that blue whales can hear much higher frequencies, all the way up to about 18,000 hz, so it isn't like the other whales can't hear this one.

Hopefully the whale is accepted and communicated with, and the other whales just know them as "the one with the higher pitched voice"

I get it. Reminds me of the [last song] (https://youtu.be/nDRY0CmcYNU?is=2G47ZpdH3rSk_j3P) of the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō.

But it may not be the only one!

> recordings of a second 52-hertz whale, heard elsewhere at the same time, have been sporadically found since 2010.

Same here. This part got me:

> The whale itself has never been sighted: it has only been heard via hydrophones, but its call has been detected since the late 1980s in a pattern that matches the migration of the blue whale and the fin whale. Those species call at 10 to 39 Hz and 20 Hz respectively.

So not only lonely, but sings in a falsetto by whale standards; a weirdo. A lonely fellow with a distinctly high-pitched voice.

Whales have the biggest brains on the entire planet. Scientifically proven they have feelings. You're doing it right.

I've only read the linked Wikipedia article, but is there any evidence that calling at this frequency somehow impedes communication with other whales? I don't know very much about how whales communicate and socialize.

> anthropomorphizing nature

Whales are much more deeply connected emotionally to one another than we will ever be. And some species are probably as smart as we are.