Compliance with vessel speed restrictions to protect North Atlantic right whales
Environmental regulations can only be effective if they are adhered to, but the motivations for regulatory compliance are not always clear. We assessed vessel operator compliance with a December 2008 regulation aimed at reducing collisions with the endangered North Atlantic right whale that requires...
Published in: | PeerJ |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , |
Format: | Text |
Language: | English |
Published: |
PeerJ Inc.
2014
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4060020 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.399 |
id |
ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4060020 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4060020 2023-05-15T17:31:40+02:00 Compliance with vessel speed restrictions to protect North Atlantic right whales Silber, Gregory K. Adams, Jeffrey D. Fonnesbeck, Christopher J. 2014-06-03 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4060020 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.399 en eng PeerJ Inc. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.399 © 2014 Silber et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. CC-BY Conservation Biology Text 2014 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.399 2014-06-22T01:06:12Z Environmental regulations can only be effective if they are adhered to, but the motivations for regulatory compliance are not always clear. We assessed vessel operator compliance with a December 2008 regulation aimed at reducing collisions with the endangered North Atlantic right whale that requires vessels 65 feet or greater in length to travel at speeds of 10 knots or less at prescribed times and locations along the U.S. eastern seaboard. Extensive outreach efforts were undertaken to notify affected entities both before and after the regulation went into effect. Vessel speeds of 201,862 trips made between November 2008 and August 2013 by 8,009 individual vessels were quantified remotely, constituting a nearly complete census of transits made by the regulated population. Of these, 437 vessels (or their parent companies), some of whom had been observed exceeding the speed limit, were contacted through one of four non-punitive information programs. A fraction (n = 26 vessels/companies) received citations and fines. Despite the efforts to inform mariners, initial compliance was low (<5% of the trips were completely <10 knots) but improved in the latter part of the study. Each notification/enforcement program improved compliance to some degree and some may have influenced compliance across the entire regulated community. Citations/fines appeared to have the greatest influence on improving compliance in notified vessels/companies, followed in order of effectiveness by enforcement-office information letters, monthly summaries of vessel operations, and direct at-sea radio contact. Trips by cargo vessels exhibited the greatest change in behavior followed by tanker and passenger vessels. These results have application to other regulatory systems, especially where remote monitoring is feasible, and any setting where regulatory compliance is sought. Text North Atlantic North Atlantic right whale PubMed Central (PMC) PeerJ 2 e399 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
PubMed Central (PMC) |
op_collection_id |
ftpubmed |
language |
English |
topic |
Conservation Biology |
spellingShingle |
Conservation Biology Silber, Gregory K. Adams, Jeffrey D. Fonnesbeck, Christopher J. Compliance with vessel speed restrictions to protect North Atlantic right whales |
topic_facet |
Conservation Biology |
description |
Environmental regulations can only be effective if they are adhered to, but the motivations for regulatory compliance are not always clear. We assessed vessel operator compliance with a December 2008 regulation aimed at reducing collisions with the endangered North Atlantic right whale that requires vessels 65 feet or greater in length to travel at speeds of 10 knots or less at prescribed times and locations along the U.S. eastern seaboard. Extensive outreach efforts were undertaken to notify affected entities both before and after the regulation went into effect. Vessel speeds of 201,862 trips made between November 2008 and August 2013 by 8,009 individual vessels were quantified remotely, constituting a nearly complete census of transits made by the regulated population. Of these, 437 vessels (or their parent companies), some of whom had been observed exceeding the speed limit, were contacted through one of four non-punitive information programs. A fraction (n = 26 vessels/companies) received citations and fines. Despite the efforts to inform mariners, initial compliance was low (<5% of the trips were completely <10 knots) but improved in the latter part of the study. Each notification/enforcement program improved compliance to some degree and some may have influenced compliance across the entire regulated community. Citations/fines appeared to have the greatest influence on improving compliance in notified vessels/companies, followed in order of effectiveness by enforcement-office information letters, monthly summaries of vessel operations, and direct at-sea radio contact. Trips by cargo vessels exhibited the greatest change in behavior followed by tanker and passenger vessels. These results have application to other regulatory systems, especially where remote monitoring is feasible, and any setting where regulatory compliance is sought. |
format |
Text |
author |
Silber, Gregory K. Adams, Jeffrey D. Fonnesbeck, Christopher J. |
author_facet |
Silber, Gregory K. Adams, Jeffrey D. Fonnesbeck, Christopher J. |
author_sort |
Silber, Gregory K. |
title |
Compliance with vessel speed restrictions to protect North Atlantic right whales |
title_short |
Compliance with vessel speed restrictions to protect North Atlantic right whales |
title_full |
Compliance with vessel speed restrictions to protect North Atlantic right whales |
title_fullStr |
Compliance with vessel speed restrictions to protect North Atlantic right whales |
title_full_unstemmed |
Compliance with vessel speed restrictions to protect North Atlantic right whales |
title_sort |
compliance with vessel speed restrictions to protect north atlantic right whales |
publisher |
PeerJ Inc. |
publishDate |
2014 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4060020 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.399 |
genre |
North Atlantic North Atlantic right whale |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic North Atlantic right whale |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.399 |
op_rights |
© 2014 Silber et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.399 |
container_title |
PeerJ |
container_volume |
2 |
container_start_page |
e399 |
_version_ |
1766129348145840128 |