Ocean Alliance/Courtesy photo Holding some of the Ocean Alliance’s developmental Snotbots are, from left, the Alliance’s CEO Iain Kerr and John Graham, and Olin College students Silas Hughes, Matt Matthew Rush and Jay Woo.

(GLOUCESTER, Mass.) — The way CEO Iain Kerr sees it, his nonprofit company — Ocean Alliance, located in the small seaside town of Gloucester, Mass. — has an innovative approach to collecting biological data from whales.

So it’s only natural, he says, the nonprofit would seek an innovative means of funding its work — with help from a longstanding supporter who’s led us on some fictional explorations himself.

The Alliance has launched a $225,000, 40-day online Kickstarter campaign for its so-called Snotbot robotics program, which, through the use of specially developed drones, collects data from the fluids emitted by the whales through their blowholes, yet avoids harassing the whales in the process. 

The supportive friend is Sir Patrick Stewart, the actor who, as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek: The New Generation,” has taken us on voyages into space. In the real world, Stewart has long been a backer of the Ocean Alliance and its explorations of the deep.

Stewart has joined Kerr in a video urging support for the Snotbot project, which was launched in 2012 in partnership with Olin College of Engineering in Needham. The Snotbot data can enable researchers to run diagnostics on everything from DNA, hormones, virus and bacteria to the effects of chemical and toxin absorption on a whale’s system.

Actor’s Alliance ties

Kerr said Stewart became aware some time ago of Ocean Alliance’s efforts through fellow actor Lisa Harrow, who is married to Dr. Roger Payne, the Ocean Alliance’s founder and president. So Kerr and others connected with the Ocean Alliance project flew to California to approach Stewart about shooting a video in support of the drone project.

“The means we now use for collecting data from whales, I believe, can be seen as harassing them, and causing them stress, which can affect the data,” Kerr said. Particularly, those methods include pursuing the whale in a motorized boat and firing a biopsy dart from a crossbow.

The idea behind the video, Kerr said, was to use Stewart — who had already donated to the Snotbot program and had one of the robots named “Sunny” in honor of his wife, jazz singer Sunny Ozell — to illustrate the effect of current methods on whales. So the video opens with Stewart emerging from his home, being “shot” with a dart, and Kerr, appropriately playing the researcher, explaining “I’m just collecting data.”

In the end, the 3-minute, 46-second video focuses on the advantages of the Snotbot project and on Stewart’s message:

“I’m asking you to support my good friend, Capt. Iain Kerr, and Ocean Alliance,” Stewart says, “in their quest for more effective, more efficient, innovative research that will give us answers to some of the mysteries about the ocean — and particularly whales.”

Unraveling mysteries

Kerr said his and Ocean Alliance’s own commitment to the drone program is tied to unraveling many of those mysteries.

“We believe that how humanity interacts with whales is significant,” he says. “We believe that, because whales are at the top of the (ocean) food chain, that whales are very good indicators of what’s going on in the ocean around them.”

Kerr said the idea of raising money through a massive Kickstarter effort is a new venture for him. (The campaign runs through Aug. 25; donate here.)

“We’re hoping to appeal to technology people, to environmentalists — and we’re hoping to appeal to science fiction or ‘Star Trek’ fans,” Kerr said.

Ray Lamont writes for the Gloucester Daily Times.