Ship collision risk threatens whales across the world’s oceans

2024/11/21 by Anna C. Nisi, Heather Welch, Stephanie Brodie +23 · 1 voice · 11 citations
Environmental Science · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Marine animal studies overview #Marine and coastal plant biology #Arctic and Antarctic ice dynamics

paper · doi:10.1126/science.adp1950

Abstract

After the near-complete cessation of commercial whaling, ship collisions have emerged as a primary threat to large whales, but knowledge of collision risk is lacking across most of the world's oceans. We compiled a dataset of 435,000 whale locations to generate global distribution models for four globally ranging species. We then combined >35 billion positions from 176,000 ships to produce a global estimate of whale-ship collision risk. Shipping occurs across 92% of whale ranges, and <7% of risk hotspots contain management strategies to reduce collisions. Full coverage of hotspots could be achieved by expanding management over only 2.6% of the ocean's surface. These inferences support the continued recovery of large whales against the backdrop of a rapidly growing shipping industry.

Citations

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Discussions

• Nisi et al. mapped whale movement of 4 species in relation to shipping activity. "Shipping occurs across 92% of whale ranges". The northern horn of Sumatra is of high risk for sperm whales; consisten [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]

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