80 Percent Of Ships Violate Speed Limits In Rare Whale Protection Zones

North Atlantic Right Whale. (Source: NOAA Fisheries)

JAKARTA - More than 80 percent of ships travel at high speed in the "slow" zone set by environmental regulators along the East Coast of the United States, to protect endangered whales, the North Atlantic Right Whales, according to a report released by environmental group Oceana.

The North Atlantic Right Whales have been on the verge of extinction since 1970, with an estimated number of only 340, as quoted from the NOAA Fisheries website November 11.

The site said the collision with the ship was the main cause of whale death, in addition to climate change, sea noise and entangled with fishing gear.

Oceana said it analyzed the ship's speed from November 2020 to July 2022 in the slow zone set by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) along the East Coast.

As a result, they found about 84 percent of ships violating speeds in the mandatory slow zone, while 82 percent violating speeds in the voluntary slow zone.

NOAA created a speed limit of 10 knots for ships with a length of more than 65 feet (20 meters) in 2008.

"The ships are speeding up, and the whales are dying, that's as simple as that," said Oceana Campaign Director Gib Brogan, urging policymakers to step up enforcement of speed restrictions.

The report shows that passing ships sometimes enter the zone at speeds above 10 knots before slowing down.

Oceana said it used data from Global Fishing Watch, an international nonprofit founded by Oceana in collaboration with satellite image provider SkyTruth and Google, to track the ship's speed and location.

Meanwhile, NOAA told Reuters by email its own evaluation showed 80 percent compliance with speed restrictions in the zone, but added the methodology was different from Oceana.

"NoAA Fisheries' approach evaluates overall compliance based on the percentage of total distance traveled by ships equipped with AIS in the speed zone at the appropriate speed," he said.