Contribute to study
marine mammals and help
preserve them, with FME

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Frédéric Eichelbrenner
aka Fred aka lefred06
FME Addict since 2003
11 years as customer (Airbus DS)
8 years as FME consultant (Ellipso Facto / Veremes)
Certified FME Professional and Trainer
Sailing for 40 years
Scuba Diving for 35 years
Proud (lucky?) survivor of the SigTill challenge 😇

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Knowledge
Protecting wildlife requires
© Copyright Participe Futur - http://www.participefutur.org/

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Agenda
● Marine mammals
● Key factors for observation
● Available datasets
● Implementation with FME
● Lessons learnt / Perspectives

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The Pelagos Sanctuary
https://www.sanctuaire-pelagos.org/en/
Area 87,500 sq.km
Agreement between Italy, Monaco and France
Since 1999
Place your screen capture here
“... enable the three countries to create jointly coordinated initiatives to
protect cetaceans and their habitats from all sources of disturbance:
pollution, noise, accidental capture and injury, disruption etc.”

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Heavy maritime traffic in the area
Compared to the Vancouver area
Boat density (#boats per sq.km per year)
HeatMaps generated on https://www.marinetraffic.com/

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Main cetacean species
Fin whale
22 m / 70 tons / ~# 1,000
⚠ marine traffic
Sperm whale
18 m / 40 tons / ~# 100s
⚠ marine traffic
Long-finned pilot whale
6 m / 3 tons / ~# 2,000-10,000
⚠ marine traffic, nets, mass strandings
© Copyright Participe Futur
Illustrations © M. Würtz. Musée océanographique de Monaco,
Fondation Albert Ier

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Food chain
Fin whale
Krill (zooplankton)
Sperm whale
Giant squid
Long-finned pilot whale
Fish
Squid
© Parc national de Port-Cros 2005

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Several NGO operate in the area
Participe Futur founded in 2004
https://www.participefutur.org/
Short missions during the summer
Starting from Toulon (close to the French Riviera)
Successful long term missions in the past
Svalbard, Sicily, Azores, ...
Fata Morgana 2023
From Marseille to the Greenland (March to October)
https://www.fatamorgana2023.eu/
© Copyright Participe Futur

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Summer short missions
● 1 skipper
● 1 guide
● 5 eco-volunteers
© Copyright Participe Futur

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Observation protocol
● Steady heading
● Constant speed (5 knots)
● 3 persons watching
○ port, front, starboard
© Copyright Participe Futur

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Code of good conduct
Area of vigilance (300 m)
Strict rules to avoid disturbing animals
© Pelagos sanctuary
https://www.sanctuaire-pelagos.org/en/raising-awareness/code-of-good-conduct

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Common database of all observations
https://www.obsenmer.org/

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Spotting animals in such a large area requires a good eye…
… maybe spatial data can help !!!
© Copyright Participe Futur

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Key factors to successful observation
● Food
○ Zooplankton for fin whales
○ Giant squid for sperm whales
● Bathymetry
○ Deep seabed for fin whales
○ Continental slope for sperm whales
● Weather conditions
○ Good visibility
○ Waves “not too high”

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Copernicus
Place your screen capture here
● ESA funded program
● Plenty of services (Land, Marine, Climate, …)
● Marine resources catalog
https://resources.marine.copernicus.eu/products
○ Plankton, temperature, waves, …
○ Nice data viewer
○ Data download service
■ FTP
● NETCDF format
■ Other protocols
💓

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SHOM
French national hydrographic service
https://data.shom.fr/
● Shoreline
● Bathymetry
● Many other datasets
○ including Lidar (Litto3D)

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Communication constraints
Alcyon usually stays offshore overnight
Cannot rely on a stable internet connection
Prefered distribution by email with a small
attachment
© Copyright Participe Futur
© Copyright Participe Futur

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Workspace to produce the map
(does not comply with Don Murray’s first rule of FME Club)

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Workspace parameters

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Focus on the FTP download / data reading

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Focus on the image processing

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Resulting maps

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FME Cloud
● Starter instance
● Smallest primary disk
● 20GB temporary disk
● Scheduled to run for one hour at noon on
Tuesdays and Saturdays
Place your screen capture here

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Basic automation
● Schedule to start at H + 10minutes
● Manual trigger for testing
● Extract zooplankton for current day
and forecast in 3 days
● Email result as attachment

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Key figures
● 26 bi-weekly zooplankton maps generated (D and D+3)
from 2021/07/24 to 2021/09/04
● 160 kBytes : Unitary image size (easy download)
● 11.30 $ USD Monthly cost (FME Cloud)
● 76 cetacean observations (2021/07/10 to 2021/09/03)

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What’s next ?
● New summer missions starting early July
● Work with biologists to refine the minimal and
maximal depths for zooplankton sampling
● Include wave height in the maps
○ if you cannot see, what’s the point of watching 😉
● Check temperature influence with biologists

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https://www.participefutur.org/
@associationparticipefutur
https://www.fatamorgana2023.eu/
@ExpeditionFataMorgana

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Please Share Your Session Feedback
Log in & navigate to the
agenda. Select the
session you attended
Scroll down to “Session
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Event code: fmeuc
Click “Launch App”
Fill out the survey
and submit

Thank You!
frederic@ellipsofacto.com
frederic.eichelbrenner@veremes.com
google slide

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The SigTill challenge
4:30am : leave the bar,
eat some junk food
6:30am : attend the yoga course
( without falling asleep)