Ship-strike forecast and mitigation for whales in Gitga’at First Nation territory
As marine traffic increases globally, ship strikes have emerged as a primary threat to many baleen whale populations. Here we predict ship-strike rates for fin whales Balaenoptera physalus and humpback whales Megaptera novaeangliae in the central territorial waters of the Gitga’at First Nation (Brit...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:960679e9378c440ea116d52202892de2 2023-08-20T04:05:26+02:00 Ship-strike forecast and mitigation for whales in Gitga’at First Nation territory EM Keen É O’Mahony LM Nichol BM Wright C Shine B Hendricks H Meuter HM Alidina J Wray 2023-05-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.3354/esr01244 https://doaj.org/article/960679e9378c440ea116d52202892de2 EN eng Inter-Research https://www.int-res.com/abstracts/esr/v51/p31-58/ https://doaj.org/toc/1863-5407 https://doaj.org/toc/1613-4796 1863-5407 1613-4796 doi:10.3354/esr01244 https://doaj.org/article/960679e9378c440ea116d52202892de2 Endangered Species Research, Vol 51, Pp 31-58 (2023) Zoology QL1-991 Botany QK1-989 article 2023 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.3354/esr01244 2023-07-30T00:39:03Z As marine traffic increases globally, ship strikes have emerged as a primary threat to many baleen whale populations. Here we predict ship-strike rates for fin whales Balaenoptera physalus and humpback whales Megaptera novaeangliae in the central territorial waters of the Gitga’at First Nation (British Columbia, Canada), which face increases in existing marine traffic as well as new liquified natural gas (LNG) shipping in the next decade. To do so, we utilized Automatic Identification System (AIS) databases, line-transect surveys, shore-based monitoring, whale-borne tags, aerial drone-based focal follows, and iterative simulations. We predict that by 2030, whale encounters will triple for most vessel types, but the change is most extreme for large ships (length >180 m) in prime whale habitat, in which co-occurrences will increase 30-fold. Ship-strike mortalities are projected to increase in the next decade by 2.3× for fin whales and 3.9× for humpback whales, to 2 and 18 deaths yr-1, respectively. These unsustainable losses will likely deplete both species in the coastal region of BC. Models indicate that the largest single source of mortality risk in 2030 will be from the LNG Canada project. Of the mitigation options we evaluated, a 10 knot speed ceiling for all large ships is potentially effective, but the best measure for guaranteed mitigation would be seasonal restrictions on LNG traffic. While certain data gaps remain, particularly with respect to humpback whales, our predictions indicate that shipping trends within Gitga’at waters will impact whale populations at regional levels. We provide our analysis in the R package ‘shipstrike’. Article in Journal/Newspaper Balaenoptera physalus baleen whale Megaptera novaeangliae Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles British Columbia ENVELOPE(-125.003,-125.003,54.000,54.000) Canada Endangered Species Research 51 31 58 |
institution |
Open Polar |
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Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Zoology QL1-991 Botany QK1-989 |
spellingShingle |
Zoology QL1-991 Botany QK1-989 EM Keen É O’Mahony LM Nichol BM Wright C Shine B Hendricks H Meuter HM Alidina J Wray Ship-strike forecast and mitigation for whales in Gitga’at First Nation territory |
topic_facet |
Zoology QL1-991 Botany QK1-989 |
description |
As marine traffic increases globally, ship strikes have emerged as a primary threat to many baleen whale populations. Here we predict ship-strike rates for fin whales Balaenoptera physalus and humpback whales Megaptera novaeangliae in the central territorial waters of the Gitga’at First Nation (British Columbia, Canada), which face increases in existing marine traffic as well as new liquified natural gas (LNG) shipping in the next decade. To do so, we utilized Automatic Identification System (AIS) databases, line-transect surveys, shore-based monitoring, whale-borne tags, aerial drone-based focal follows, and iterative simulations. We predict that by 2030, whale encounters will triple for most vessel types, but the change is most extreme for large ships (length >180 m) in prime whale habitat, in which co-occurrences will increase 30-fold. Ship-strike mortalities are projected to increase in the next decade by 2.3× for fin whales and 3.9× for humpback whales, to 2 and 18 deaths yr-1, respectively. These unsustainable losses will likely deplete both species in the coastal region of BC. Models indicate that the largest single source of mortality risk in 2030 will be from the LNG Canada project. Of the mitigation options we evaluated, a 10 knot speed ceiling for all large ships is potentially effective, but the best measure for guaranteed mitigation would be seasonal restrictions on LNG traffic. While certain data gaps remain, particularly with respect to humpback whales, our predictions indicate that shipping trends within Gitga’at waters will impact whale populations at regional levels. We provide our analysis in the R package ‘shipstrike’. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
EM Keen É O’Mahony LM Nichol BM Wright C Shine B Hendricks H Meuter HM Alidina J Wray |
author_facet |
EM Keen É O’Mahony LM Nichol BM Wright C Shine B Hendricks H Meuter HM Alidina J Wray |
author_sort |
EM Keen |
title |
Ship-strike forecast and mitigation for whales in Gitga’at First Nation territory |
title_short |
Ship-strike forecast and mitigation for whales in Gitga’at First Nation territory |
title_full |
Ship-strike forecast and mitigation for whales in Gitga’at First Nation territory |
title_fullStr |
Ship-strike forecast and mitigation for whales in Gitga’at First Nation territory |
title_full_unstemmed |
Ship-strike forecast and mitigation for whales in Gitga’at First Nation territory |
title_sort |
ship-strike forecast and mitigation for whales in gitga’at first nation territory |
publisher |
Inter-Research |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3354/esr01244 https://doaj.org/article/960679e9378c440ea116d52202892de2 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-125.003,-125.003,54.000,54.000) |
geographic |
British Columbia Canada |
geographic_facet |
British Columbia Canada |
genre |
Balaenoptera physalus baleen whale Megaptera novaeangliae |
genre_facet |
Balaenoptera physalus baleen whale Megaptera novaeangliae |
op_source |
Endangered Species Research, Vol 51, Pp 31-58 (2023) |
op_relation |
https://www.int-res.com/abstracts/esr/v51/p31-58/ https://doaj.org/toc/1863-5407 https://doaj.org/toc/1613-4796 1863-5407 1613-4796 doi:10.3354/esr01244 https://doaj.org/article/960679e9378c440ea116d52202892de2 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3354/esr01244 |
container_title |
Endangered Species Research |
container_volume |
51 |
container_start_page |
31 |
op_container_end_page |
58 |
_version_ |
1774715959385260032 |