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Photo: Adam Ernster
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Collisions with ships 🚢 or entanglements in fishing gear 🎣 are the leading threats to endangered whales. Implementing safer shipping practices—like reducing vessel speeds in critical whale habitats—reduces the risk of fatal ship strikes on endangered whales. 🌊🐋
Whales have evolved over the millennia to use sound for their daily life functions — to navigate, communicate, and keep in contact during long migrations.
Noise pollution disrupts these essential behaviors, threatening their ability to thrive.
Globally, the top two leading causes of mortality to whales are collisions with large vessels - known as ship strikes - and entanglements.
One of the main goals of the program is to decrease the risk of fatal ship strikes from large vessels. Lower speeds both reduce the risk of serious injuries to whales and allow whales more time to avoid impact.
Implementing Vessel Speed Reduction programs in regions with high whale presence is a crucial step in mitigating the harmful effects of chronic noise pollution and protecting vulnerable species.
Research partners from Scripps Institution of Oceanography analyzed acoustic data and found that, across all program zones, the source levels of participating vessels was reduced by 38%, or 4.1 decibels, when the 2024 program was active versus inactive.
By reducing speed, ships can reduce emissions and improve air quality.
When most fossil-fuel burning ships reduce speeds to the “whale-safer” threshold, it also decreases air pollution and emissions by about 27% from baseline (2024 VSR Season results).
Human activities are making the ocean a noisy place.
Commercial shipping in particular, has increased to the point that ships make a larger contribution to ocean noise than natural sound sources for most ocean locations.
This rise in underwater noise poses serious challenges for marine life, particularly for marine mammals including whales that rely on sound for communication, navigation, and finding food.
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Impact Stories
John Ryan and listening to what whales can tell us
August 13, 2025
Adam Ernster and his "Battle of the Blues"
August 05, 2025
Whale Atlas: A Mariners Guide to Whale Safer Shipping
June 27, 2025