Vessel Collision with Large Whales

Assembled from 34 blocks · 2 evidence · 40 related

1. Story
2. Collision between large vessels and whales, and the principal present-day anthropogenic mortality question for eastern North Pacific blue whales. It matters most where a feeding aggregation and a shipping approach occupy the same water, which along the US west coast means the Santa Barbara Channel and the approaches to the major California ports. It is not settled how much it constrains recovery: a 2015 analysis concluded that ship strikes did not pose an immediate threat to the eastern North Pacific population, which the same work estimated at 91-97 percent of carrying capacity in 2013. That conclusion is about a population near its ceiling and does not transfer to a population at one percent of its former size.
3. Knowledge
4. Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus)
5. Santa Barbara Channel
6. Vessel Collision with Large Whales
7. Connections
8. Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus)
9. Santa Barbara Channel
10. Blue Whales and Blue Skies Vessel Speed Reduction Programme
11. Eastern North Pacific blue whales are estimated near carrying capacity
12. California voluntary speed reduction reports its 2025 season
13. Antarctic Krill (Euphausia superba)
14. Rorqual Lunge Feeding
15. Antarctic Blue Whale (B. m. intermedia)
16. Pygmy Blue Whale (B. m. brevicauda)
17. Northern Indian Ocean Blue Whale (putative B. m. indica)
18. Fin Whale (Balaenoptera physalus)
19. Whale-Mediated Iron Recycling
20. Vessel Collision with Large Whales
21. The longest blue whale on record is measured at South Georgia
22. The heaviest blue whale on record is weighed
23. The IWC protects blue whales from commercial hunting
24. The commercial whaling moratorium takes effect
25. Blue whale song frequencies are observed falling worldwide
26. The energetics of blue whale lunge feeding are modelled
27. Baleen whale consumption is re-measured, and the krill paradox sharpens
28. Point Conception
29. California Current System
30. Vessel Collision with Large Whales
31. California voluntary speed reduction reports its 2025 season
32. Evidence
33. The eastern North Pacific blue whale population was estimated at 91-97 percent of carrying capacity in 2013, and the analysis concluded that ship strikes did not pose an immediate threat to its recovery. V55 verification basis: retrieved in search summary attributed to this paper; the paper was not fetched, and the conclusion has been discussed critically since without a reassessment being retrieved here.
34. In the 2025 season 787 vessels across 44 shipping lines voluntarily reduced speed over more than 481,000 nautical miles in designated zones along the California coast; participating vessels reduced fatal strike risk to blue, fin and humpback whales by 40 percent against a 2016 baseline and cut underwater radiated noise acoustic intensity by 70 percent. The programme asks vessels of 300 gross tons or more to slow to 10 knots or less and is being extended statewide under California Assembly Bill 14. V55 verification basis: retrieved in search summary of agency announcements; the underlying analyses were not obtained, and the risk reduction is reported for participating vessels rather than for all traffic.