Ships fail to follow speed limit set to protect whales Study says more than 40% of large vessels are noncompliant.

Ships fail to follow speed limit set to protect whales


By Doug Fraser

Posted Mar 20, 2020

Study says more than 40% of large vessels are noncompliant.

A newly released study shows that more than 40% of vessels, mostly large container, cargo and tanker ships, were not complying with a voluntary speed limit set for an area south of Nantucket where a group of approximately 60 highly endangered right whales has been congregating for months this winter

The marine environmental group Oceana took data from the Automatic Identification System, which broadcasts vessel speed and location and is required on ships larger than 65 feet in length. They superimposed that data on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sightings of North Atlantic Right Whales within a box of ocean just south of Nantucket that extends south into the international shipping lanes leading into New York City.

Research shows that when it comes to whales speed kills. A 2007 study showed that 45% to 60% of whales being hit by large ships traveling at 12 knots are killed. At speeds greater than 19 knots, 100% of collisions are lethal.

Researchers also found that slowing vessels down to 10 knots or less reduced the risk of collision with right whales by 86%.

Scientists have determined that less than one North Atlantic right whale a year can be killed by humans if the species is to avoid extinction. Two died from presumed ship strikes in Canada in 2019.

“We see every ship as a risk to these whales, especially when they are as concentrated as they are (south of Nantucket),” said Oceana Fishery Campaign Manager Gib Brogan. “They need to be fully compliant. There shouldn’t be any ships moving faster than the threshold speed (10 knots) when there are only 400 right whales left.”

Ship strikes remain one the major killers of right whales and whales in general. Larger vessels are especially lethal, and NOAA implemented a ship strike reduction rule in 2008 that is currently being updated.

Since Jan. 22, NOAA has been warning all mariners that that patch of ocean is a Dynamic Management Area with a voluntary speed limit of 10 knots or less. But Oceana found that 183, or 41%, of the 446 ships they tracked between Jan. 22 and March 6 exceeded the speed limit.

For instance, on Jan, 22, a 705-foot-long French-flagged cargo ship sped through the area at 20.3 knots, twice the speed limit. A month later, the restriction was still being ignored with a 650-foot Panama-flagged cargo vessel traveling at nearly 21 knots.

Eight vessels were tracked at speeds higher than 20 knots, including one Panama-flagged vessel at over 22 knots, the highest recorded speed. Only 4% of the speeding vessels were American flagged.

Dynamic Management Areas are considered a temporary measure, a way to draw a protective box around right whales when they unexpectedly group together. NOAA also has a series of Seasonal Management Areas all along the Atlantic Coast migration route where these whales are found every year that come with mandatory speed reductions to 10 knots.

Oceana also examined travel data in the Seasonal Management Area off Block Island and found that only 60 out of 516 vessels, or 11.6%, violated the mandatory speed limit. Most were just barely over, but one, a US-flagged passenger vessel around 125 feet in length, was clocked at nearly 21 knots.

“We found pretty much what we expected,” Brogan said about compliance with a voluntary speed restriction. “It’s like on the Mass Pike when you know there’s no troopers out there, you behave differently when they are.”

Seasonal Management Areas have much stricter speed regulations requiring that a ship’s master note every speed deviation in his logbook and explain why it was necessary. Ship safety is the only allowable reason cited by NOAA.

Brogan said Oceana is advocating that in updating the ship strike reduction rule they make the speed limit mandatory in the Dynamic Management Areas, and offered the tracking methodology they’d developed to NOAA as a compliance monitoring tool.

“We need to absolutely verify,” Brogan said. “We can’t assume that compliance is going to be high when what we came out with today shows that compliance is low and this isn’t working.”

NOAA did not return a request for comment by the Times deadline, nor did the International Chamber of Shipping, which represents a majority of the international shippers.