Whales and Ships Ahoy

• The Publisher’s Notebook •
Off the Malibu Coast: Whales and Ships Ahoy

BY ANNE SOBLE

When the decomposing remains of one of the blue whales killed by a ship strike two weeks ago floated onto Broad Beach early Sunday morning, it was a portent that there is no escaping the need to address the potential for future fatal clashes between these endangered goliaths of the sea and the vessels that traverse these waters. The blue whales are responding to instinctive calls for food and social bonding that are immutable. Those who own and captain the ships can reduce their speeds or change course to accommodate such an extraordinary species, or we will watch its numbers decline below the precarious total that now exists. The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History has confirmed that the three dead blues were killed by ships. Scientists appear confident they can rule out early concerns about domoic acid, which has wreaked havoc with the sea lion and dolphin population, as well as other species. Early conjecture that animals were becoming disoriented and colliding with vessels is not valid. Similarly, at least in the case of the first two blues that died prior to the start of the Navy’s exercises, interference from sonar has been tentatively removed from the suspect list. None of the necropsied animals showed signs of auditory damage, but critics point to sonar’s link to whale deaths in other areas and still urge the exercises’ curtailment. And they don’t want sonar discounted in future whale deaths that occur.

Assuming that the blue’s rancid remains don’t return to shore again, a circumstance that local residents should hope will be the case, the current focus must shift to ways to assure the greatest degree of protection for the whales still along the local coast. Proponents of emergency ship speed limits are lobbying elected officials and maritime agencies to set speed limits for ships in the Santa Barbara Channel and adjacent areas to protect the imperiled blues while their sole food source, krill, is abundant in the shipping lanes. The Center for Biological Diversity has petitioned the National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal agency charged with enforcing the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, to set a speed limit of 10 nautical miles per hour in the Santa Barbara Channel for all vessels 65 feet or larger until the whales have left the channel. Similar speed limits were proposed on the East Coast to protect the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale. This measure should be implemented immediately.