By Jesse Ryan

In late May, a container ship entered the San Francisco Bay with extra cargo.

A 45-foot dead female fin whale was draped across the ship's bow. A necropsy revealed that the impact with the ship had broken her back, ruptured her organs and caused severe internal bleeding. It is unlikely that anyone on the ship felt the impact of the collision. Crews on cargo ships often have no idea they struck a whale unless they see a carcass when they reach port, says Captain Kip Louttit, executive director of Marine Exchange of Southern California, a nonprofit that monitors and directs ship traffic in the region.

"We can't see the whales if there's white caps and we can't see them at night," said retired captain and Council of American Master Mariners National President Jeff Cowan.

Even though whales in United States waters haven't been targeted with harpoons and grenades since the 1986 international ban on commercial whaling, ships still pose a significant threat to the giants that swim beneath the ocean's surface.

The first 11 months of 2018 marks the highest number of whale casualties attributed to ship strike in California since 1982 — the year NOAA Fisheries first began tracking. Half of this year's stranded and deceased whales with boat collision injuries were endangered or threatened fin, blue and humpback whales. Despite the high incidence of whale mortalities linked to ship strikes, no rules are in place on the West Coast to mitigate collisions.

"It's concerning," said Justin Greenman, the California assistant stranding coordinator for NOAA Fisheries, on the increase in mortalities. "I think that there will definitely be some looking back at this year."

Vessel strikes are one of the leading human-caused deaths of large whales on the West Coast. In the past 10 years, at least 60 blue, gray, fin, and humpback whales with signs of ship strikes have been found dead in California, Oregon and Washington, according to the NOAA National Marine Mammal Stranding Database.

Many more whales are killed by ships on the West Coast than are reported because they are never seen or they sink upon death.

"If we had all these whales floating around on the water and showing up on beaches nobody would stand for this," said Michael Fishbach, the executive director of Great Whale Conservancy, a nonprofit that works to protect whales around the globe.

The massive size of container ships makes it difficult for crews to see whales and feel the impact of a whale collision. See the size difference up close and hear underwater. In order to view the experience, open Snapchat and point your camera at the Snapcode. Press and hold on the Snapcode on your screen to scan it and launch the experience from your phone. If you're on a mobile device you can also click here.

Sunken Evidence

Scientists are uncertain why ship strike deaths surged over the past 11 months. While fluctuation in numbers is expected since stranding records depend on detection and reporting, the body count is an indicator that the issue requires attention.

Most experts agree that the 10 documented whales killed in 2018, representing over a 200 percent increase from the average 3.6 whales killed annually in the five previous years, may only be a fraction of all ship collision mortalities.

"One doesn't mean one, one probably means 10 to 20 are occurring. So when you have 10 that's a pretty big multiplier," said John Calambokidis, a biologist at Cascadia Research Collective and a leading Pacific whale expert.

Recovery rates for struck whales on the West Coast are low because they tend to be less fat than East Coast whale species, meaning they sink upon death. Others are never spotted due to ocean currents and decomposition. Between 83 percent to 95 percent of blue, fin, and humpback whales struck by ships are not detected, according to a 2017 study conducted by Point Blue Conservation Science, a nonprofit scientific research organization. The report estimates that ship strikes alone kill over 80 whales off the West Coast each year.

"Without a doubt, there are more whales struck by ships on the West Coast than the stranding records show," said Dr. Jim Dines, the mammalogy collections manager at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County who responds to strandings of dead marine mammals in Los Angeles and Orange counties. Federal officials echo the sentiment that some ship-struck whales are never found.

"There's definitely cryptic mortality. The numbers that we report are certainly in the minimum," said Greenman.

The undocumented losses are important because they deflate a key number NOAA Fisheries looks at when determining if species need further protective measures. NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service set a human-caused mortality limit, known as Potential Biological Removal (PBR), marine species can withstand each year based on its minimum population size. If a population suffers more losses than that limit, the mortality levels are considered unsustainable.

"PBR is designated for the purpose of saying this is the number that can be taken that doesn't pose a threat to the population and above that level there is a real threat to the population," said Calambokidis.

From 2006 to 2016, blue, humpback and fin whale mortalities caused by ship strike alone exceeded each species' allowable PBR limits, the Point Blue Conservation Science study estimates.

In May, a female gray whale died of blunt force trauma to the skull, according to the necropsy report. Photo Courtesy NOAA Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program

The carcass of a female gray whale with a fractured skull was found on Tennessee Valley Beach in May. Photo Courtesy NOAA Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program

The carcass of a male fin whale with a large impact wound on his right side was draped over the bow of a cargo ship that entered the Port of Long Beach in October. Photo Courtesy NOAA Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program

A dead female blue whale was spotted off of the Farallon Islands in June. Her tongue was swollen from the buildup of gas created in the decomposition process. The necropsy revealed she had three shattered vertebrae and trauma consistent with a ship strike. Photo Courtesy NOAA Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program

On the East Coast, regulations limiting the speed of large ships in certain areas have been effective in reducing North Atlantic right whale deaths. NOAA Fisheries established the Ship Strike rule in 2008 to protect right whales, which remain one of the most endangered whale species in the world. NOAA Fisheries, also known as the National Marine Fisheries Service, is a branch of NOAA that deals with managing marine resources. The comprehensive policy relocated shipping lanes and mandated ships to slow to speeds of 10 knots or fewer in specific areas during periods of peak right whale activity.

"It was a challenge. We had a lot of pushback, but we just kept trying to come back to the science," said Greg Silber, who spearheaded the process of creating and passing the Ship Strike rule as the large whale recovery coordinator for NOAA Fisheries.

Slower ship speeds have been proven to reduce both the likelihood of a ship-whale encounter and the lethality of a collision. In the 10 years since the rule has been in effect, two ship-struck right whales were found in or within 45 nautical miles of an area with imposed speed limits, a decrease compared to the nine right whale deaths attributed to ship strikes in the same areas in the decade before the rule.

"We've been able to show that the 10-knot speed limit can really help the situation," said Amy Knowlton, a senior scientist at The New England Aquarium, who has studied North Atlantic right whales for over 30 years.

In 2017, Canada imposed a seasonal speed restriction in the Gulf of St. Lawrence after 12 dead whales were found in the area. The slowdown was a new component of an existing effort to protect right whales. One year later, the number of mortalities dropped.

"In the areas where speed restrictions and other measures have been put into place, we have fewer dead whales from vessel strikes," said Moira Brown, a senior scientist at the Canadian Whale Institute. “For the Canadian government to react in a matter of weeks and months to protect whales was really impressive."

Beyond ship speed, other proposed conservation tools for large whales include separating ships from whales by rerouting shipping lanes, limiting shipping activity when whales are most active, and using technologies to help ships better detect and avoid whales.

Members of the shipping industry are adamant that they do not want to hurt whales and note that public perception of their involvement in ship strikes is important.

"The companies do not want to look like they're aiming at whales," said Cowan, the national president of the Council of American Master Mariners. "They don't want to have a picture of a whale draped over its bow. That's bad in California."

A Perfect Storm

The interests of many groups converge around the 70-nautical mile stretch between the coast of California and the Channel Islands that make up the Santa Barbara Channel. Seasonal upwelling of nutrient-rich cold water from the continental shelf drop off fuels phytoplankton growth which draws swarms of krill. Whales, specifically blue and humpback, are drawn to the region to feast on the krill and small fish. The feeding frenzy is a boon for whale watching companies, which navigate the waters alongside thousands of container ships moving in and out of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long beach. Nearly 40 percent of U.S. container imports and 25 percent of all the country's exports flow through the two ports — together they represent one of the world's largest port complexes.

Given the high number of whale sightings in the channel, some conservationists believe that rerouting the shipping lane behind the Channel Islands could decrease the risk of ship-whale encounters. But the 36,000 square miles behind the islands is a part of the U.S. Navy's Sea Range, and used for missile tests and training exercises. The Navy is resistant towards funneling shipping traffic through their sea range as it might interrupt their testing operations.

"It's like a perfect storm against the whales," said Fishbach, who advocates that the best method to save whales on the West Coast is to limit ship traffic at night, when they are more likely to feed near the surface.

Efforts to reduce ship strikes in California intensified after five endangered blue whale carcasses were found in the Santa Barbara Channel in September 2007. The carnage triggered NOAA's Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary to start working with the shipping industry, government agencies, and non-profit organizations to reduce whale-ship collisions.

"That's what really got movement. A mass mortality event," said Jessica Morten, a Resource Protection Specialist at NOAA Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary.

Following the blue whale deaths, the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit that works on conservation issues around the world, petitioned NOAA Fisheries to set mandatory seasonal 10 knot speed limits in the Santa Barbara Channel. After the petition was denied, the Center filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Coast Guard in 2008 for failing to ensure ship traffic In the Santa Barbara Channel does not jeopardize the lives of endangered species.

"Nobody was doing anything so we decided to sue," said Miyoko Sakashita, the oceans director at the Center for Biological Diversity, who remains concerned about the issue.

While the Center for Biological Diversity lost the lawsuit, the Coast Guard announced plans a year later to evaluate how the Santa Barbara shipping lanes may be modified to reduce marine casualties. Through a collaboration with the Channel Islands Marine Sanctuary, the separation space between the mile-wide lanes was narrowed from two miles to one mile by shifting the southbound lane one mile north in 2013.

The one mile lane shift to divert ship traffic away from whale feeding grounds was an "insignificant, pitiful effort," said Fischbach.

The Channel Islands National Marine sanctuary continues to lead efforts to mitigate ship strikes in California but they don't have regulatory authority beyond sanctuary boundaries. Creating mandatory regulation to protect whales from vessel strikes would require either the Coast Guard or NOAA Fisheries to draft a proposed rule and shepherd it through an interagency approval process.

When asked about the increase of ship strikes in 2018, Penny Ruvelas, the Long Beach branch chief for NOAA Fisheries' protected resources division, said she had not seen the 2018 stranding records her office compiles as she typically reviews them at the end of the year. "If that's the case," she said about the unprecedented number of mortalities, "it might flag to us we need to pay attention, yes there is a problem."

For now, the Channel Islands National Marine sanctuary is focused on voluntary and incentive-based programs. A recent initiative, known as Protecting Blue Whales and Blue Skies, encourages ships to slow down by paying companies that comply with recommended speed limits.

Protecting Blue Whales and Blue Skies represents a collaborative effort between California marine sanctuaries and air pollution control districts. The program incentivizes cargo ships to slow down around whale feasting areas in the Santa Barbara Channel Region and around San Francisco Bay. Companies whose vessels travel 10 knots or less instead of the average 14 to 18 knots from July through November are given a small stipend, which totaled a thousand dollars per one-way transit in 2017. The program relies on public and private funding to pay ships. The number of incentivized slowed ship transits has increased over the years from 27 in 2014, to 125 in 2017, but the program only reaches a sliver of the 2,500 container ships that travel through the Santa Barbara Channel and 3,300 commercial vessels that move in and out of the San Francisco Bay each year.

"While there's been some success demonstrated with the incentive program as well as voluntary reductions where there's follow up with shippers, all of these pale in comparison with a mandatory reduction in ship speed in key areas," said Calambokidis.

The payout to complying companies has decreased each year of the Protecting Blue Whales and Blue Skies program. Sanctuary officials hope that eventually they will no longer need to pay ships to slow down, with companies abiding by speed recommendations due to increased public scrutiny on sustainable shipping practices and pressure from retailers transporting goods on the ships. But that vision has yet to be realized.

"There's no consumer awareness about this issue," said Jessica Morten, a Resource Protection Specialist at NOAA Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary.

Slowing down doesn't only help whales — it's beneficial for human lungs as well. Lower speeds increase fuel efficiency and reduce air pollution emissions such as nitrogen oxide, a key component in smog. Marine shipping accounts for approximately 70 percent of the NOx emissions in Santa Barbara County. The Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District is one of the partners and funders of the Blue Whale Blue Sky Program.

"Shipping emissions account for a significant amount of our pollution in Santa Barbara County and we don't have any regulatory authority over that pollution," said Lyz Hoffman, a spokesperson for the Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District, citing the district's jurisdiction over only stationary sources of pollution such as oil production facilities.

A Shared Passage

In addition to the Blue Sky Program, the Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, and San Diego each operate voluntary speed reduction programs, principally to reduce air pollution. The Port of Los Angeles gives ships that travel 12 knots or less within 40 nautical miles or 20 nautical miles of the port a 15 to 30 percent rebate on their dockage fees.

For the past three years, The Pasha Group has had the lowest compliance rates of all shipping companies whose vessels make at least five trips to the Port of Los Angeles a year. Among that same group, the average compliance rate for slowing down at the 40-nautical mile boundary was 84.48 percent in 2017; for the 20-nautical mile boundary, 91.96 percent. Across a total of 384 transits in and out of the Port of Los Angeles, The Pasha Group's average compliance rate for 2017 was 6 percent for the 40-nautical mile boundary and 11 percent for the 20 nautical-mile boundary, according to the Port of Los Angeles.

The ship that sailed into the San Francisco Bay this May with a dead female fin whale wrapped around its bow is owned by a Pasha Group subsidiary, Pasha Hawaii. The same ship, the Horizon Spirit, reported striking another whale less than one month later. The second whale's final status is unknown. A carcass was never recovered.

"We can't really slow down and make our connecting barges" said Edward Washburn, the Pasha Group's senior vice president of fleet operations, when asked about the company's low compliance rates to the Port of LA's vessel speed reduction program. Washburn did not respond to repeated requests for comment about the Horizon Spirit's involvement in two whale strikes.

Shipping companies claim that mandatory speed limits complicate their planning processes and increase costs. If ships miss their appointment to unload at a port they have to wait for the next available slot, which can sometimes take days and cause companies to incur additional dock worker fees. The scheduling argument against slowing down was raised "many times" in the drafting of the East Coast Ship Strike rule, according to Greg Silber. Eventually, companies were able to incorporate the reduced speed zones into their voyage planning.

Not all companies consistently disregard slow down requests. Maersk, the world's largest shipping company, participates in the Protecting Blue Whales and Blue Skies program and last year its vessels met a 94 percent and 79 percent compliance rate for the Port of LA's 20-nautical mile and 40-nautical mile voluntary speed program, respectively.

"It would probably make less impact for us than for others," said Lee Kindberg, director of environment and sustainability at Maersk, of how mandatory speed limits in California would affect Maersk shipping activities, "but you do have situations where you need to move faster."

Barring incidents when ships are already running late due to weather or technical issues and risk missing their port appointment, there aren't any steep costs to slowing down in the Channel Islands Region, according to a study conducted by NOAA's National Ocean Service. Researchers analyzed the potential economic impact of management strategies such as speed reduction and rerouting in the Channel Islands region and found that the measures wouldn't significantly change costs for shipping companies.

As an unknown number of dead ship-struck whales sink in California waters, vessel collision incidents are rising around the world.

"In 2018 international strikes with commercial vessels are a real and growing threat to particular whale populations," said Patrick Ramage, program director of marine conservation at The International Fund of Animal Welfare. "More progress is needed and soon in order to reduce that threat in the face of increased shipping traffic."

From 2007-2016, over 1,200 vessel collisions were logged in the International Whaling Commission's global ship strike database.

Conservationists such as Michael Fishbach hope that someday soon policies in California can serve as a successful example of how to protect whales in heavily trafficked areas. In the meantime, he believes its coastal waters are not safe.

"At the end of the season I yell at the whales, 'Please don't go to California!'" said Fischbach, on his annual parting words to blue whales he has been studying and photographing in the Sea of Cortez every winter for the past 24 years.

The fact of the matter is 50 to 60 percent go to California and the fact of the matter is that their life is on the line every day that they are there."