Incidence of ship strikes of large whales in Washington State

(2001) found that fatal ship strikes were rare threats to certain populations of whales and dolphins, but at before the 1800s, were infrequent until 1950, and have since least the latter two are more transparent and cause more loca- increased steadily with the number of ships and the greater lized loss to populations than ship strikes, anthropogenic speeds of ship travel. [...] Additionally, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration there has been an increase in vessels entering the Strait of (NOAA) and the US Navy to consider more restrictive ship- Juan de Fuca; an estimated 11,000 vessels of greater than ping regulations and the development of a remote sensing 300 gross tons passed through the Strait in 1999, and the programme for whales (Stark et al., 2002;. [...] Humpback whales are present greatest number of records of confirmed ship strike, both by seasonally off Washington State, and are often sighted in number and proportion of individuals of each species, feeding groups between the Juan de Fuca Canyon and the which corresponds to findings in the literature. [...] This rich feeding area is directly west of the entrance records collected from Oregon and California to calculate to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and is also centred in the main that the average number of mortalities due to confirmed shipping channel for vessels accessing shipping ports of ship strikes for fin whales along the US west coast was 0.4 Bellingham, Seattle, and Tacoma WA, as well as Van. [...] Sightings and recordings of fin whales species, however, the carcass was moderately decomposed at indicate they are present offshore Oregon and Washington the time of the necropsy, and the examining team could not much of the year.