A study has shown that implementing mitigation measures in just 2.6% of the ocean could significantly reduce the risk of ship strikes on whales. This focused approach could help protect these marine mammals without imposing excessive burdens on the shipping industry, according to The Guardian.
Whale-Ship Collisions
While it’s difficult to accurately estimate the number of whale-ship collisions due to underreporting, experts believe that tens of thousands of whales may be killed annually. Researchers have identified key areas where the risk of these collisions is highest, and they’ve found that most of these areas lack adequate mitigation measures.
Dr. Jennifer Jackson, of the British Antarctic Survey and a co-author of the research, said: “This is the first study to look at this problem at a global scale, enabling global patterns of collision risk to be identified using an extremely large contemporary dataset of four recovering whale species.”
The team then combined this dataset with more than 35bn positions from 175,960 ships to estimate the risk of whale-ship collisions across the world’s oceans.
The results reveal that marine shipping occurs across 91.5% of the combined range of these whales, putting them at risk of collisions.
The researchers were also able to identify hotspots – defined as areas with the top 1% of ship-strike risk.
While these were mostly concentrated around continental coastlines, and the highest percentage was in the Indian Ocean, the researchers said hotspots were also found in areas of open sea such as the Azores, at least for blue and sperm whales.
Risk Hotspots
While there are measures to reduce whale-ship collisions, they are currently limited to a small portion of the ocean. Even a small expansion of these measures, covering just 2.6% of the ocean’s surface, could significantly reduce the risk of collisions. Vessel slowdowns are particularly effective in minimizing these incidents.
Climate change is exacerbating the problem by opening up new shipping routes in the Arctic, which could lead to increased interactions between ships and whales migrating to these areas.
Sally Hamilton, the chief executive of the charity Orca, and who was not involved in the research, said large whales were facing the equivalent of marine motorways.
“The shipping industry have an opportunity to put vessel strike at the heart of their environmental strategy by working with conservationists and governments to establish safe marine spaces,” she said. “In doing so they can help undo the damage caused by industrial whaling and mitigate the future impacts of vessel strikes.”
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Source: The Guardian
