WAILS in La Repubblica: the underwater sentinel protecting whales and dolphins in the Mediterranean

WAILS in La Repubblica: the newspaper dedicates an in-depth feature to our underwater monitoring technology and the system that alerts ships for cetacean protection, reducing the risk of collisions in the Mediterranean.

Following Corriere della Sera, another major national newspaper covers our work. The article by Gabriella Rocco, published on September 5, 2026, titled “A tech guardian to save whales and dolphins,” describes how cameras, hydrophones, and artificial intelligence can become a real-time alert system for mariners and a knowledge tool for those who study the sea.

The Mediterranean: a water highway over a critical habitat

The Mediterranean Sea occupies less than 1% of the global ocean surface, yet it absorbs nearly a third of the world’s merchant traffic. The same corridor that drives the economy is also a crucial habitat for whales, sperm whales, and dolphins.

The result is an increasingly difficult forced coexistence. In the Pelagos Sanctuary alone—the marine protected area between Italy, France, and the Principality of Monaco—an estimated 3,500 “near misses” occur every year: close encounters between vessels and cetaceans that narrowly avoid impact. Added to this is noise pollution, which alters the communication and orientation of these large marine mammals.

Eyes, ears, and artificial intelligence below the surface

The report by La Repubblica tells the story of how WAILS was born. The idea is to apply continuous observation to the sea, rather than relying on occasional surveys.

The system combines high-resolution underwater cameras and hydrophones capable of intercepting typical cetacean vocalizations. Artificial intelligence algorithms cross-reference the visual and acoustic signals, verifying their reliability to reduce false alarms and, if confirmed, generating an alert.

From real-time alerts to research reports

The alert reaches the crew directly, allowing them to slow down or take evasive maneuvers. This is the most immediate part of the system, but not the only one.

At the end of operations, the platform generates automatic reports that collect detections, GPS coordinates, and route history. This is a wealth of data useful for researchers, marine protected areas, and maritime authorities, who currently often work with discontinuous observations.

A modular platform, not just for cetacean protection

Cetacean protection is the first application, but the architecture is modular. The same infrastructure can be configured for the surveillance of marine protected areas, the control of ports and offshore infrastructure, the monitoring of underwater construction sites and aquaculture plants, and even the protection of submerged archaeological sites.

Algorithms can be trained to recognize animal species, vessels, divers, or structural anomalies, producing timelapses and 3D models that document changes over time. An initial testing ground was Lake Garda, where the system was tested to track the evolution of the lakebed.

Why WAILS in La Repubblica is a signal for the entire sector

Seeing WAILS in La Repubblica, just days after the feature in Corriere della Sera, confirms a growing interest in technologies that make what happens beneath the surface observable. Underwater monitoring is moving out of the scientific niche to become an operational tool for shipowners, public entities, ports, and the offshore industry.

For us, it is also a confirmation of our path: bringing artificial intelligence underwater means transforming images, sounds, and environmental parameters into concrete decisions.