High mortality of blue, humpback and fin whales from modeling of vessel collisions on the U.S. West Coast suggests population impacts and insufficient protection.

• Published in: PLOS ONE
• Main Authors: R Cotton Rockwood, John Calambokidis, Jaime Jahncke
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2017
• Subjects: Medicine; R; Science; Q; Long Beach; Lanes; Fin whale
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0183052; https://doaj.org/article/521214353e8d46b69c473c02b9e4da28

Mortality from collisions with vessels is one of the main human causes of death for large whales. Ship strikes are rarely witnessed and the distribution of strike risk and estimates of mortality remain uncertain at best. We estimated ship strike mortality for blue humpback and fin whales in U.S. Wes...