Research was conducted during 2011 related to potential impacts of ship strikes on blue whales off California. This work is a collaborative effort by Cascadia Research, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary (CINMS). Support for this work came from the Office of Naval Research and CINMS.
The primary goals of this work include:
- Examine the occurrence of whales off California and identify areas of potential risk from ship strikes.
- Determine the behavior of blue whales using areas of high ship overlap to identify how and why they are using these areas.
- Examine interactions between whales and ships to better evaluate the efficacy of strategies for reducing ship strikes.
Read more about our work in 2011: Summary of ship-strike related research on blue whales in 2011.