In the first week of April, an enormous, brutalized carcass of a gray whale washed up at the San Leandro Marina. The whale had propeller lacerations throughout its body, hemorrhages in the soft tissue around its jaw and shoulder and a fishing line encircling its snout.
Just two weeks prior, another dead whale had washed up in Bolinas with similar injuries.
Both of these deaths, dubbed “Unusual Mortality Events” by scientists, were determined to have been caused by massive boats running into the whales – the equivalent of marine roadkill.
It is, experts say, the cost of trying to manage a superhighway’s worth of shipping traffic flowing into the Port of Oakland in the middle of prime whale habitat.
“The science keeps piling up,” said Brian Segee, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Not only is it not an aberration, but the problem is worse than feared.”
Each year, close to 100 whales are hit and killed by ships along the West Coast – many of them near San Francisco. A 2021 study estimated that 10 whales are killed by ships in the Bay Area every year between May and September alone. For every whale that washes up on shore, at least 10 other bodies are never recovered.
To whale conservation advocates, the cycle of whale deaths and investigations have failed to spur the action required to reduce these deaths. . And although these types of accidents will likely never be completely eliminated, groups like the Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of Earth believe that common sense changes like mandatory speed reductions are the key to protecting the species.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the population of gray whales along the West Coast had dropped about 40% since the last population estimate in 2015. Humpback and blue whales, both which feed off the coast of San Francisco, are still listed as endangered. Among these vulnerable populations, vessel strikes are still one of the most frequent causes of human-caused whale deaths.
Climate change is only making the problem worse. According to researchers at the Marine Mammal Center, changes in ocean conditions, which are pushing food sources closer to shore, mean gray whales are spending longer than ever in and around the Bay.
During their approach to the Bay, ships travel directly through “hotspot” feeding areas for the whales. When the mammals come to the surface to breathe, they often end up in “dead zones” at the front of the ship, unable to hear the approaching vessels. Whales, of course, did not evolve around enormous container ships – and are ill-prepared to avoid them when a collision is imminent.
In the Bay Area, there is some irony in the fact that many of these incidents occur in what is technically a marine sanctuary. The Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, a 3,200 square mile swath of protected habitat extending along the coast north of San Francisco, is one of the primary feeding locations for whales in the region.
According to Maria Brown, the sanctuary’s superintendent, the sanctuary has spent the last decade working to reduce the risk of vessel strikes. They’ve made shipping lanes narrower, they’ve studied whale feeding patterns, and they’ve instituted a voluntary speed limit for ships.
That speed limit, to ten knots or less, reduces the likelihood of a whale dying if it is hit by a ship. In recent years, about 65 % of vessels have complied with the request.
“We have good cooperation, but yes we’d like to get higher cooperation,” Brown said.
Still, advocates say that a mandatory speed limit is long overdue. Certain corners of the shipping industry, they say, will always ignore it, arguing they don’t have time to slow down. Segee points to mandatory speed reductions on the East Coast that helped reduce fatal collisions between ships and the North Atlantic Right Whale.
“Compliance has gone up overtime, but it’s still below what’s necessary,” Segee said. “Ideally this wouldn’t be occurring at all.”
Brown said the sanctuary has a goal of getting to a 50% “reduction in risk” of vessel strikes. If they’re unable to achieve that goal, she said the organization’s advisory committee could consider a mandatory speed limit. The sanctuary also will conduct a management policy review next year.
But Brown also said that, ultimately, the massive marine creatures and ships will have to coexist.
“Ships and whales are going to have to share the same environment,” Brown said. “My job, the sanctuary’s job, is to make sure it’s as safe as possible for the whales.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com