Abstract
The marine traffic has evolved to ever more big and fast ships increasing substantially the pressure on marine fauna. Ship strike is nowadays identified as a major threat on large cetaceans inducing significant additional mortalities. However, estimation of ship strike rates is still challenging notably because such events occurred generally far offshore and collision between large ships and whales go often unnoticed by ship crew. The monitoring of marine mammal strandings remain one the most efficient way to evaluate the problem. In France, a national coordinated network collected data and samples on stranded marine mammals since 1972 along the Mediterranean and Atlantic French coasts. We examined stranding data, including photography and necropsy reports, collected between 1972 and 2017 with the aim to provide a comprehensive review of confirmed collision records of large whales in France. During this period, a total of 51 ship strikes were identified which represents the first identified causes of mortality for large whale in France. It has increased since 1972 with 7 records during the first decade to reach 22 stranded animals observed between 2005 and 2017. This issue appears particularly critical in the Mediterranean Sea where one in five stranded whales showed evidence of ship strike. This review of collision records highlights the risk of a negative impact of this anthropogenic pressure on the dynamic of whale populations in Europe, suggesting that ship strike rates could not allow achieving the Good Environmental Status of marine mammal populations required by the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive.
Highlights
MATERIALS AND METHODSMarine traffic exerts a growing pressure on marine megafauna
We review five decades of whale stranding data collected along the French coasts in order to document the importance of ship strikes on populations of large whales and provide baseline data for future assessments
A total of 396 large whale strandings were recorded in France between 1972 and 2017, of which 51 (12.9%) were diagnosed as being caused by ship strikes
Summary
Marine traffic exerts a growing pressure on marine megafauna. Ships and other sea-faring vessels cause chemical pollution, modification of habitats and animal behavior (including through noise disturbance) as well as direct injuries through collisions with animals (Pirotta et al, 2018). In order to understand the future threat of anthropogenic pressures, like the “extraction of, or mortality/injury to, wild species, (by commercial and recreational fishing and other activities)” (2008/56/EC, Annex III), we need to study their impact on populations in the past and present, and project the observed trends into the future This requires the efficient monitoring of populations and the development of quantitative indicators that reveal the degree to which human activities impact these populations (Santos and Pierce, 2015; Authier et al, 2017). We review five decades of whale stranding data collected along the French coasts in order to document the importance of ship strikes on populations of large whales and provide baseline data for future assessments This is a step toward the development of a ship strike mortality indicator, which would serve as a means to better understand the importance of ship strikes in European waters in the future and identify ways to mitigate them in context of GES achievement through the MSFD. Results are described following different marine sub-areas used in MSFD: the Western Mediterranean Sea (WMS), the Bay of Biscay (BB), the Celtic Sea (CS) and the Channel and North Sea area (CNS)
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