The last few weeks have been pretty exciting at Ocean Alliance hosting a number of television crews.
Two Saturday’s ago, Ocean Alliance had a CBS News shoot for a national news feature on SnotBot®. Host Tom Hanson interviewed Iain Kerr for the segment and filmed SnotBot® in action on Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. We had really great weather and experienced a feeding frenzy of seabirds, dolphins, finback and humpback whales. Ocean Alliance collected great behavioral footage along with a robust snot sample from a Finback whale that will be analyzed for hormones, DNA, and microbiomes. The news story is planned to air on CBS News affiliated stations today, reaching a minimum of 5 million viewers!
This past weekend actor/comedian Sir Billy Connolly spent three hours at the Paint Factory with Ocean Alliance filming a segment for Billy Connolly’s Great American Trail television show. The show will be broadcast on ITV in September 2019 and then worldwide. The production team was interested in filming in Gloucester because of the whaling history, wildlife, and Ocean Alliance’s new developments in whale research. Billy was able to test out our thermal imaging drone FLIRBot, and even fly a drone himself! It was a lot of fun hosting Billy and the production team at our Paint Factory headquarters. We’ll keep you updated on when the show will air.
Last September, while on a Parley SnotBot expedition in Gabon, Africa the Ocean Alliance team filmed an episode of BBC’s Equator from the Air. For our UK friends the first episode will air on Sunday 26th May, on BBC Two at 20:00/8pm BST. The series will air at the same time each week for an additional three weeks. Look for it on BBC streaming in the near future.
To learn more about Ocean Alliance’s work and what is going on at the Paint Factory visit https://whale.org or follow us on social media.
Good Morning Gloucester 