It’s called the “area to be avoided,”— 1,000 square nautical miles located in the Roseway Basin region of the Scotian Shelf, just south of Barrington, N.S. And since June 1, ships have been asked to make a detour around the area, a crucial habitat for the endangered North Atlantic right whale.
There may be only 350 these right whales left in the Atlantic Ocean. Without measures to protect and grow their numbers, they could be extinct by 2020.
“In the first four days (since implementation of new policy), we’ve seen evidence of vessels complying,” says Angelia Vanderlaan, a PhD candidate studying biological oceanography at Dalhousie University. “Since this is new and it is a voluntary measure, I’m hoping it will work.”
And she’s got her eye on just who is and who isn’t complying. Ships transmit information about their whereabouts, speed, direction, and length and type of ship every three seconds—“It’s like, ‘here I am!’ ‘Here I am!’” says Ms. Vanderlaan. This data is picked up specialized equipment installed on cell towers near Cape Sable Island. Back in her office at Dalhousie, Ms. Vanderlaan can track those ships and their movements on her computer.
On June 1st, for example, about 20 vessels traveled through the Roseway region, a thoroughfare for ships from Halifax to New York. Sixteen of those ships avoided the area, and another four could have, but didn’t and plowed right on through. On June 3 and June 4, tracking reveals some vessels clearly modified their routes to avoid.
“It’s early on, but some seem to be going around,” she says. “We think it will make a big difference; it certainly helped when the shipping lanes were shifted in the Bay of Fundy.”
The monitoring is possible because of collaboration between Bell-Aliant and the Dalhousie researchers led by oceanography professor Christopher Taggart.
“When Chris approached Aliant, there was no question, we wanted to be a part of it,” says Alyson Queen, public affairs manager for Aliant. “It’s an excellent example of how business and academia can combine forces for the betterment of the environment.”
Aliant has also installed the receivers on towers near Halifax and in Glace Bay, Cape Breton, with additional sites being considered near Caraquet, N.B. and Digby, N.S.
Hunted to the brink of extinction during the last century, the right whale continues to be under threat by mankind. (Whalers called the right whale – the “right” whale to kill because they were relatively easy to pursue and their thick layer of valuable blubber kept the dead whale conveniently afloat.) But now the greatest threat it faces is being struck and killed by a ship. The faster the ship is traveling, the more likely the whale will die.
So why don’t the whales get out of the way? Ms. Vanderlaan says while the whales likely hear ship traffic, they’re so used to the noise it doesn’t serve as a warning. At one time, for example, researchers experimented by broadcasting alerts to the whales, but instead of scaring them away, it brought them to the surface where there was a greater likelihood of a collision. A collision with a ship’s propellers can sheer off a whale’s tail, slice them apart, or cause huge contusions.
“It’s like living beside a train track,” she says. “After awhile, you stop hearing the trains go by.”
Ms. Vanderlaan says changes they’ve proposed have been supported and indeed embraced by Canadian companies, such as Irving Oil. But the same is not true in the United States. Efforts by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to impose seasonal speed restrictions (to 10 knots an hours) in areas frequented by whales have been stonewalled by the White House, she says. The rule has been awaiting clearance at the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs since February 2007.
There is also a proposal to create an area to be avoided in the Great South Channel, near Cape Cod.
“The World Shipping Council is against restrictions and people are fighting it tooth and nail,” she says. “But if a whale is hit at a slower speed, they’re more likely to survive the injury.”
Charles Crosby | newswise
International network connects experimental research in European waters
21.03.2017 | Leibniz-Institut für Gewässerökologie und Binnenfischerei (IGB)
World Water Day 2017: It doesn’t Always Have to Be Drinking Water – Using Wastewater as a Resource
17.03.2017 | ISOE - Institut für sozial-ökologische Forschung
Astronomers from Bonn and Tautenburg in Thuringia (Germany) used the 100-m radio telescope at Effelsberg to observe several galaxy clusters. At the edges of these large accumulations of dark matter, stellar systems (galaxies), hot gas, and charged particles, they found magnetic fields that are exceptionally ordered over distances of many million light years. This makes them the most extended magnetic fields in the universe known so far.
The results will be published on March 22 in the journal „Astronomy & Astrophysics“.
Galaxy clusters are the largest gravitationally bound structures in the universe. With a typical extent of about 10 million light years, i.e. 100 times the...
Researchers at the Goethe University Frankfurt, together with partners from the University of Tübingen in Germany and Queen Mary University as well as Francis Crick Institute from London (UK) have developed a novel technology to decipher the secret ubiquitin code.
Ubiquitin is a small protein that can be linked to other cellular proteins, thereby controlling and modulating their functions. The attachment occurs in many...
In the eternal search for next generation high-efficiency solar cells and LEDs, scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory and their partners are creating...
Silicon nanosheets are thin, two-dimensional layers with exceptional optoelectronic properties very similar to those of graphene. Albeit, the nanosheets are less stable. Now researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have, for the first time ever, produced a composite material combining silicon nanosheets and a polymer that is both UV-resistant and easy to process. This brings the scientists a significant step closer to industrial applications like flexible displays and photosensors.
Silicon nanosheets are thin, two-dimensional layers with exceptional optoelectronic properties very similar to those of graphene. Albeit, the nanosheets are...
Enzymes behave differently in a test tube compared with the molecular scrum of a living cell. Chemists from the University of Basel have now been able to simulate these confined natural conditions in artificial vesicles for the first time. As reported in the academic journal Small, the results are offering better insight into the development of nanoreactors and artificial organelles.
Enzymes behave differently in a test tube compared with the molecular scrum of a living cell. Chemists from the University of Basel have now been able to...
20.03.2017 | Event News
14.03.2017 | Event News
07.03.2017 | Event News
24.03.2017 | Materials Sciences
24.03.2017 | Physics and Astronomy
24.03.2017 | Physics and Astronomy