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A Georgia monitoring buoy off the coast of Tybee Island listening for the calls of endangered right whales heard a few for the first time late last month. GPB’s Peter Biello reports.
A buoy off the coast of Tybee Island, used to listen for the calls of endangered North Atlantic right whales, heard a few for the first time late last month.
The buoy had been listening for two years before it picked up a sound known as a “contact call,” said Mark Baumgartner, senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which monitors the buoy.
“We call it a contact call because we believe it’s designed for animals to stay in contact with one another,” Baumgartner said. “I call and then maybe you call and then I know you’re there and you know that I’m there.”…