Page 12: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (June 2023)

Back to the Drawing Board

Image courtesy Abby van Hemmen

Dealing with the Whale in the Bight

By Rik van Hemmen his is going to be about whales, but it will actually whales are incredibly endangered. They were hunted to near be an engineering discussion rather than a nature extinction because they were the easiest whales to hunt. discussion. Let’s start with an easy truth. Whale They were relatively slow and ? oated after they were killed.

Tdeaths due to offshore wind activities is utter non- Hence their name; right whale. After commercial whaling sense. It has no basis in fact, and is a total fabrication by was shut down in the second half of the last century, there truly malicious characters. were only a few hundred right whales left in the North At-

There, now let’s get into more interesting stuff. Whale lantic. There is a much larger South Atlantic population but deaths caused by humans is a complex issue that will never be the two do not intermix because they generally will not cross solved completely, but, with careful adjustments, can be re- the equator and also apparently do not like strange whales duced. There is a possibility that occasionally there are whale to breed with. (The North Paci? c right whale population is

COVID style epidemics that cause unusual levels of mortal- even more endangered) ity, but we have to accept that there will also always be whale Contrary to other whale species, which generally have made deaths due to human activity and the vast majority of those strong comebacks, the North Atlantic right whale population deaths are vessel strikes and debris entanglement. is not growing and may actually be harmed by global warm-

Right now, in the US North East Atlantic, we are actually ing. This has resulted in special shipping regulations in the dealing with two different types of whale mortality that have form of speed restrictions to reduce the chance of ship strikes entirely different drivers and causes. We have North Atlantic when right whales are in the general area and some ? ercely right whale mortality and humpback whale mortality. resisted ? shing regulations. Despite that, right whales are still

From a nature conservation point of view, one is quite scary being struck by ships and killed by entanglement.

and the other is not so scary. Then there are the humpback whales. Since they were

Let’s talk about right whales ? rst. North Atlantic right quicker and do not ? oat as well after being killed, they were 12 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • June 2023

MR #6 (1-17).indd 12 6/5/2023 12:30:23 PM