right whale ship strikes

On October 10, 2008 the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) took the landmark step of protecting highly endangered North Atlantic right whales by officially limiting ship speeds to only ten knots (approximately 11 miles per hour) or less in times and areas where whales are likely to be at risk.

This rule, combined with certain ship routing measures, represents the first major step taken by the U.S. government to reduce seriously the risk of collisions with whales. Ship strikes are known to be one of the major causes of mortality for this species. North Atlantic right whales are among the most endangered mammals in the world. They currently number less than 400 individuals after 70 years of protection. Decades of research on the population shows that their population growth is very slow, and is greatly impeded by deaths caused by ship strikes and entanglements. Of all the right whales known to have died from 1970-1999, 35% of them were killed by ships. Four whales were known to have died from collisions in 2006 alone.

Slowing ships saves whales

By slowing ships down, the whales get three primary benefits. The first is obvious – more time to move out of the way of a ship once they detect it. If a whale is focused on feeding and/or finding prey, or socializing with other whales it may not detect the approaching ship until it is too late, and can't avoid the ship in time. By cutting down the speed of most boats by 50%, the whale is given that extra time (and there are numerous known cases where whales have taken avoidance actions at the last minute). Secondly, models of collisions have shown that a secondary cause of whale deaths from ships come from whales that avoid the bow of the boat, but can't escape the huge suction force of the giant propellers of these large ships. By cutting the speed, the draw from the propellers is also greatly reduced. Finally, while slower speeds may not mean the whale can survive a collision with a huge tanker, it would allow the animal to swim away from a collision with a smaller boat. Since fatalities have occurred with boats as small as 80 feet, this could also be an important protection.

Initial Resistance

The proposed regulation to slow ships was held up for over a year by the office of Vice President Chaney, who tried to challenge the science behind it. However, several members of the House and Senate found about the delay, and worked to move the rule forward over the last several months. Shipping companies were originally opposed to the regulation because of the increased time and cost it would introduce, but a further analysis showed that the increase would actually be less than 4/10 of 1%.

While we are encouraged by the rule, we were upset by two modifications to the originally proposed rule. The rule now applies only to ships within 20 miles of the coast, rather than the original 30 miles despite the presence of whales in those extra ten miles. More importantly, in areas where whales show up outside of the well known areas of aggregation, similar measures would only be voluntary (they were originally proposed to be mandatory), despite data which shows compliance with voluntary guidelines to be almost non- existent. Despite these limitations, we applaud NMFS for taking this important step, and hope it helps to save this species from extinction.