~ What technology is used to help you find the giant squid? ~

Dr. Clyde Roper

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Here at the end of the 20th century, we are very fortunate because we have several different kinds of instrumentation, new technology that will enable us to not only look for and hopefully find the giant squid, but also to explore and discover in the deep-sea habitat where we'll be working. First of all, we will have a little research submarine called a submersible. And they can dive to depths of several hundred to several thousands of meters depth in the sea.

In addition to that, we have instruments that fall in the category of remote sensing. That is, we can pick up information and data about both habitats, ecosystems and organisms, by being removed from the actual scene. One instrument is called side-scanning sonar, enables us to look for soft-bodied animals. Of course, the giant squid is a very soft-bodied. So we hope with this new side-scanning sonar we're able to pick up the images of giant squid and other organisms at a distance of perhaps a hundred or two hundred meters away.

We have bioacoustical listening devices. These are simply hydrophones in the water where we listen to the noises or to the sounds that are produced by different organisms in the sea. In our situation, in our looking for the giant squid, we will be listening principally to the sperm whales, because sperm whales dive, navigate, communicate, and hunt by using sounds. We will follow them remotely by listening to the sounds they make, and we will be able to determine exactly the depths that these animals are diving to. And then we will survey very carefully the depths where the sperm whales feed, because we know that's the most likely place to find giant squid. So remote sensing is really critical to our efforts to find giant squid and to explore this inner space, this deep-sea ecosystem.

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