Performing Department
College of Forestry and Conservation
Non Technical Summary
Reducing collisions between large ships and large whales is a pressing conservation concern and a prioritized management issue for a number of agencies within the US and globally. Along the western North Atlantic, ship strikes constitute the primary source of anthropogenic mortality for right whales and may limit population recovery for this critically endangered species. In the Santa Barbara channel, a primary shipping route for the port of Los Angeles/Long Beach, an average of 1.2 collisions per year between ships and blue whales have occurred since 1989 prompting agencies to advise voluntary reductions in ship speed. Globally, ship strikes are a growing concern in areas such as the Strait of Gibraltar, Caribbean, and coastal Chile. Although the spatial scope of this conservation issue is large, to date management options have focused on only one of two approaches: re-routing ships around high use area via changes in shipping lanes or designating Areas To Be Avoided, or requesting or requiring that ships reduce speeds. Each of these measures has a certain common-sense approach. For example, the reduction in spatial overlap between ships and whales should reduce the chance of collision. It is assumed that a reduction in speed will increase the time for pilots to detect whales and invoke evasive measures to avoid a collision. Yet, few studies have tested whether these measures are effective. This is due to a number of reasons including their inherent rareness and issues with detection and reporting. Many of the large vessel traffic arriving in US ports are foreign flagged which have no mandatory reporting requirements should they strike a whale. Even if reporting requirements were in place for all large vessels, detecting a strike is difficult as evidenced by the number of large ships that have unknowingly arrived in port with a dead whale draped over their bulbous bow. Should a whale get struck, carcasses may be found if they float, are detected, and accessible in time such that a necropsy can be performed to ascertain cause of death. Yet even if all of these conditions occur, it is difficult if impossible to pinpoint the location and the ship involved in the collision. Thus carcasses provide a lot of information about the whale, but virtually no information on the conditions of the collision which is critical for management because agencies manage ships not whales. This is also why it is virtually impossible to know how many whales are struck and killed each year. The number of whales subject to a necropsy is likely a low, but unknown fraction of those detected, which in turn are a low, but unknown fraction of those actually struck. This research will investigate conditions can that reduce whale-ship collisions in Glacier Bay. Whale speed and direction, ship speed and route, and options for ship responses will be considered. Results will be applicable to many areas with whale concentrations and ship traffic.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
Reducing collisions between large ships and large whales (ship strikes) is a pressing conservation concern and a prioritized management issue for a number of agencies within the US and globally. Ship strikes are a growing concern in areas such as the Strait of Gibraltar, Caribbean, and along coastal Chile. In Canada, along the Roseway Basin of the Scotian Shelf, and the Bay of Fundy, the International Maritime Office has sanctioned shifts in shipping lanes to reduce the risk of collisions with whales. Glacier Bay National Park has jurisdictional control over their marine waters. Because there are no roads into and out of the park that connect GLBA with the rest of Alaska, most visitors access the park via marine vessel. Cruise ships are the most important type of vessel entering GLBA with over 95% of visitors arriving aboard cruise ships. A central management issue (perhaps the most important management issue) then becomes understanding the impacts of cruise tourism to marine resources within the park, and weighing the impacts from cruise tourism with the value that they provide in visitor access and enjoyment. The objective of the project is to expand on the effort to put an observer on board ships outside the park, and use the data to better ship management in Glacier Bay. This will include continuing data collection and applying statistical and spatial modeling techniques to make inferences about the inherent risk of collisions or impacts to whales and factors that can reduce this risk. Specifically the focus of this project will address some questions about the efficacy of pilots/captains to detect and avoid whales using a combination of data sets including data collected during the project, data collected previously (6 years of ship-whale encounter data), and AIS data. The project will include funding to purchase berth space aboard cruise ships in order to allow observers to embark at ports of call (Skagway or Juneau) the day prior the ships entry into Glacier Bay, and disembark at ports of call (Ketchikan or Sitka) the day after the Glacier Bay visit. These 'cruises' will number 10-25 per year. This will facilitate observations in these key areas of Icy Strait and lower Glacier Bay where many whale-ship encounters occur. Student recruitment, Jun 2012 Logistics, Planning, Coordination, and training meeting, July 2012 or mutually agreed date Cruises conducted; number of cruises in 2012 contingent upon date of signing of task agreement, cruise schedule, and costs, July-August 2012 Coordination meeting at University of Montana, Fall 2012 End of year report including raw data due to NPS, Dec 2012 Study plan written outlining specific activities including spatial and statistical model approaches, April 2013 Schedule and purchase of cruises for summer 2013, Apr 2013 Cruises conducting ship-whale encounter surveys, May - Aug 2013 Coordination meeting at University of Montana, Fall 2013 End of year report including raw data due to NPS, Dec 2012 Coordination meeting to review success of study to date and evaluate funding availability, Apr 2013 End Date, Dec 2014
Project Methods
Data will be collected. by observing humpback whales from cruise ships in and near Glacier Bay National Park. Whales will be located using rangefinding binoculars from the bow of a cruise ship. Location, direction and speed of travel and behavior of the whales will be recorded. In addition, location and speed of cruise ships will also be collected. Spatial statistics methods will be used to model whale movement patterns and ship movement patterns. Statistical models will then be developed to evaluate ways to minimize whale-ship impacts while maintaining cruise ship visitation in Glacier Bay National Park.