MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — Scientists have deployed a buoy off New York to listen for singing wales.

The hi-tech acoustic device will eavesdrop on the whales to better understand and safeguard them as they swim near busy shipping lanes entering New York Harbor.

Researchers say the project is one of many around the world that listen for whales, but this is one of the few that relay data from the ocean floor back to scientists in "near real time," sometimes in about two hours.

The real-time monitoring will focus on endangered baleen whales.

Data from the sounds of other whales will be analyzed when the buoy is removed after a year.

The research is a joint project by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.