Unfortunately, large whales are hit and killed by ships globally. One of the busiest shipping routes in the world lies on the western edge of the Bay of Biscay in the North East Atlantic; container vessels, tankers and bulk carriers all move goods from northern Europe to the Mediterranean, Asia and Africa.  Couple this with high densities of large whales; the risk of whale strike is inevitably going to be high.

No one knows how many whales are killed each year in the Bay of Biscay.  The Bay is a very large expanse of deep water and very few carcasses are washed up on shore.  We are reliant on ships reporting a strike or near miss.  Many large ships are unaware that they have hit a whale and only discover this when they arrive in port with it draped over their bulbous bow. Shipping density in the Bay of Biscay is as high if not higher than in the Mediterranean, therefore it can be inferred that there will be at least a comparable risk of ship strikes in these areas.  This suggestion is supported by further scientific research, which identified the Bay of Biscay and Southwest Approaches as areas of high risk of fatal ship strike.

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.

ORCA has continued this work, and ran an innovative pilot project in 2017 with a postgraduate student from Nottingham Trent University. This work investigated the occurrence of fin whales close to large vessels, and recorded the behaviour of the animals. We are currently in the process of writing a scientific publication with our results, although initial findings were published in our 2017 State of European Cetacean report, and other scientists in the field have shown a great interest in our project and the results.

This year, we’re continuing dedicated data collection in the Bay of Biscay to further investigate the risk of ship strikes, with an improved methodology and over a longer season. 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.