Happywhale

Turns a whale-watching trip into research. Upload your photos of a humpback's tail and software matches the black-and-white pattern on the underside to a known individual, checked by a scientist; you then get to follow that whale's sightings over the years. The only time cost is the upload once you are home. The combined photos changed what scientists knew about the North Pacific. A 2024 study in Royal Society Open Science, built on images from thousands of contributors, found humpback numbers there fell by about 7,000, roughly 20 percent, between 2012 and 2021, as a massive marine heatwave cut their food supply.