The Bay is one of the busiest shipping corridors on the West Coast, and it's also home to migrating humpbacks, blues, and grays that pass through seasonally. Ship strikes are a real problem — they kill whales and they can cause significant damage to vessels. A detection network that pings captains in real time is a practical, market-friendly solution that protects marine life without slapping new regulations on the shipping industry or creating another layer of bureaucratic oversight.

This is how environmental protection should work: smart infrastructure that gives people better information and lets them make better decisions. No new permitting office. No committee of committees. Just hydrophones in the water and alerts on a screen.

Of course, San Francisco being San Francisco, any conversation about Bay waters eventually turns into a conversation about real estate. One local recently mused about submerged property in the Bay, joking it would be "pretty good deal if you're an oyster." Another quipped about their underwater lot: "Haven't even moved in and it's already underwater." The housing crisis truly knows no bounds — not even the waterline.

But back to the whales. The detection system is the kind of targeted, efficient solution we should be celebrating: it solves a specific problem, uses existing technology, and doesn't require a $200 million bond measure to maintain. If only the city applied the same philosophy to its human-scale problems — transit, housing, public safety — we might actually get somewhere.

For now, at least the whales are getting a fair shake. Someone in this Bay deserves a break.