Alaska Season Round-Up

ORCA’s Marine Mammal Observer, Maria, gives us a recap of this year’s research season in Alaska.

Four months later and I’m now back on dry land, after spending the summer working as a Marine Mammal Observer (MMO) on board Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth cruise ship.

Alongside my role as an MMO, I worked with the bridge team to deliver formal and informal training sessions on vessel strike mitigation whilst also carrying out a research project on whale behaviour. More details of our research project can be found here in my previous blog.

As part of my duties as a MMO, I acted as an additional lookout on the bridge and would report any whale sightings to the officers on watch. When a whale was sighted, I would relay certain important information to the crew which would help them to decide if and when evasive action was needed – more specifically, I would inform the crew of the distance of the whale from the ship, its position relative to the bow of the ship, and the direction in which the whale was moving.

The whale’s distance from the ship would be given as a rough estimate using the terms ‘short way’, ‘medium way’ or ‘long way’. The whale’s position relative to the bow of the ship would be given using the points system, whereby there are 32 evenly spaced points around the ship, with each point representing 11.25 degrees. Finally, it would be determined whether the whale was moving to port (moving left) or starboard (moving right). This information would be put together in a concise sentence, for example: “There is a whale two points to port, medium way, moving to starboard”. This information is crucial as it helps the crew to decide whether they need to react and, if so, how quickly they need to take action and what form this action should take.

So, what happens if it does look like the path of the ship is going to cross with that of the whale?

The first option is slowing the ship down, with the ‘golden whale-safe speed’ being 10 knots.

Studies on North Atlantic right whales off the East coast of the US suggest that a 10 knot speed limit can reduce the risk of a fatal collision by 80-90%. The second option is to perform an evasive manoeuvre, whereby the ship makes a moderate course adjustment to avoid the whale; either passing in front or behind the animal.

But which option is most effective? And at what distance and angle do whales need to be sighted in order for the ship to effectively react? Well, this is exactly what our research is trying to find out!

Alongside this, all of our whale sightings were reported through the Whale Alert Alaska sighting network. This network allows vessels in Southeast Alaska to view any recent whale sightings on a map, therefore helping them to identify in advance which areas may present a high risk of collision. There were 31 cruise ships in the sighting network this year (out of a total of 44 members), reporting 2838 sightings! I am pleased to say that the Queen Elizabeth was awarded a ‘gold medal’ in the ‘Whale Alert Olympics’ this year, an award given to any cruise ship that logged in to the website for 75+ days and/or submitted 500+ sightings.

I would like to say a huge thank you to the Captains and crew on the Queen Elizabeth for being so supportive of this project and for being so dedicated to reducing the risk of ship strike. Bring on next year!