In November 2011, ORCA and the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) came together to collaborate on a 6 month project focusing on reducing ship strikes of large whales in the Bay of Biscay. With WSPA’s funding and understanding of animal welfare and ORCA’s scientific knowledge of the Bay of Biscay, a great partnership was created to develop an innovative solutions based workshop in April 2012. We invited representatives from industry, academia and charities to work together to identify pragmatic and creative solutions to a long-standing issue.
In 2017 ORCA ran an innovative pilot project with a postgraduate student from Nottingham Trent University to continue this. The work investigated the occurrence of fin whales close to large vessels, and recorded the behaviour of the animals. We have continued this, adopting an improved methodology in 2018, and now conduct this innovative research throughout the season when whales are present in our neighbouring waters.
In 2019 James Robbins began a PHD at the University of Portsmouth, researching the threat of ship strike to large whales. ORCA’s research will be used to help progress knowledge about occurrence, behavioural impact, areas of risk and mitigation. The PhD will be supervised by Dr Sarah Marley, Professor Alex Ford and ORCA’s Head of Science and Conservation, Lucy Babey.
We hope to discover how bad the problem is, and provide a solution to ships crews and policy makers to implement solutions in the Bay of Biscay, and beyond.