By Matthew Zimmerman

Whales have fascinated humanity for millennia, inspiring myths, music and maritime culture. Anyone who has had the rare opportunity to witness these majestic creatures up close knows that it’s an awe-inspiring and deeply emotional experience. However, a number of whale species are shockingly close to the brink of extinction, and ship strikes are a leading cause.

Ship strikes—when vessels collide with whales—pose a significant threat to these animals and are one of the two leading causes of death for great whales. These incidents can be fatal, especially when large commercial vessels or yachts collide with whales resting or surfacing for air. Even non-lethal encounters often result in injuries that compromise the whales’ ability to feed, migrate or reproduce—factors that can still lead to death indirectly.

With only about 370 animals remaining and fewer than 70 breeding females, the North Atlantic right whales capture a lot of the public’s attention in the U.S. when it comes to species at risk of extinction. For these whales, ship strikes account for the plurality of their deaths over the last seven years.

However, this issue is not limited to that species. We’ve already hunted the Atlantic gray whale to extinction, and only about 300 Western gray whales remain. Furthermore, in the Eastern Mediterranean, sperm whales number between 200 and 250, with ship strikes also their leading cause of death.

Beyond the emotional and ethical implications, the ecological impact of losing whales is profound. Whales play an integral role in maintaining healthy global ecosystems and helping to regulate climate systems.

The Role of Whales in Ecological Processes

Phytoplankton are microscopic marine algae that serve as the foundation of the marine food web. They are responsible for producing about 50 percent of the Earth’s oxygen, and they absorb an estimated third of human-generated carbon dioxide. “Whale pump” is the name of the process that describes how whales feed at depth and defecate near the surface, releasing nutrients vital for phytoplankton growth. Much of the public isn’t aware of how critical phytoplankton are to all life on Earth and how essential whales are in supporting phytoplankton.

Another ecological process coupled to whales is the “whale conveyor belt,” which refers to the horizontal transfer of nutrients across vast distances as whales migrate between feeding and breeding grounds. This redistribution fertilizes nutrient-poor waters, boosting productivity across diverse marine ecosystems and helping sustain commercially valuable fish species.

Even after death, whales contribute to the marine environment through “whale fall” events. When a whale dies and its carcass sinks to the ocean floor, it delivers an enormous amount of organic material to deep-sea ecosystems. This serves as a long-term food source for a wide range of marine life and facilitates carbon sequestration, as the carbon locked within the whale’s biomass is deposited into ocean sediments for hundreds or even thousands of years.

If global whale populations were restored to pre-industrial levels, the benefits would be immense. Increased whale populations would amplify the whale pump and conveyor belt effects, promoting more phytoplankton growth and enhancing oxygen production and carbon capture. A thriving whale population would improve biodiversity, bolster fisheries, stabilize ocean ecosystems, and strengthen our planet’s resilience to climate change.

 

 

Vessel Strike Mitigation

The maritime community is not blind to this crisis. Existing mitigation strategies primarily rely on vessel routing changes and speed reductions. For instance, shifting shipping lanes away from high-risk zones—such as the Eastern Mediterranean, where the MSC Group rerouted to protect sperm whales—has proven effective.

Speed reduction is another widely promoted tactic. Slower-moving ships reduce the probability and severity of collisions, giving whales and crew more time to react.

Yet, these methods have limits: Not all waters are monitored, and not all vessels comply with routing advisories or voluntary speed limits.

Over the past few years, above-water camera systems have grown in popularity, and when coupled with AI-driven image processing, they can provide automated detection of whale spouts and breaches in suitable conditions. However, whales spend the majority of their time below the water. So, above-water camera systems can only catch a glimpse during the brief periods that whales break the surface. This is where underwater technology becomes crucial.

Underwater sensors such as 3D forward-looking sonars (3D-FLS) are a clear complement to above-water sensors. When coupled with camera systems, they provide vessels with an even more robust risk reduction system.

FarSounder’s Argos 3D-FLS technology bridges this critical detection gap. Unlike above-water systems, Argos sonars continually scan the water column ahead of the vessel, offering dynamic real-time images of objects up to 1,000 m away (more than half a nautical mile).

FarSounder’s range of 3D-FLS products have been installed on a variety of vessel types, including USVs, naval and coast guard vessels, icebreakers, research vessels, yachts, and cruise ships. These systems can detect obstacles not visible at the surface, such as whales, rocks, corals, ice and containers at navigationally significant ranges.

The original motivations of FarSounder’s founding team over 24 years ago were environmental: How can we help vessels to avoid hitting rocks, thus preventing oil spills, and how can we help vessels not to hit whales?

Therefore, it is important that FarSounder’s systems are designed not only with the safety of the vessel in mind but also the safety of the marine environment. All sonar signals are not the same, and those transmitted by FarSounder sonars are safe for the whales and the environment. The FarSounder engineering team has followed the strict guidelines established by the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to prevent acoustic harassment of marine mammals. Regular internal reviews are conducted, and participation in industry-wide discussions takes place to ensure products align with best practices for marine environmental stewardship. This commitment reflects our guiding principle that protecting marine life must be a foundational element of maritime innovation.

When paired with above-water systems and included in a vessel’s voyage planning, the sonar becomes a key layer in a multifaceted whale protection strategy. It’s a tool not only for collision avoidance but for more responsible and informed vessel operations around the world.

 

 

Citizen Science

Mitigating whale strikes isn’t just the responsibility of governments and conservation agencies. Everyone in the maritime community can play an important role by participating in citizen science initiatives to expand our collective knowledge and response capabilities because, without widespread data, we can’t focus conservation efforts.

One simple way to participate in citizen science is by contributing crowdsourced observations to organizations such as Ocean Wise and Whale Alert. Understanding the value of such widespread observations, FarSounder is committed to contributing to this movement, and the company’s entrée into facilitating crowdsourced data collection began over six years ago by enabling its customers to collect and anonymously share bathymetry (Sea Technology, January 2024). The bathymetry data are passed on to the International Hydrographic Organization’s (IHO) Data Centre for Digital Bathymetry and integrated into Seabed 2030’s efforts to map the entire seafloor of the global ocean.

Last year, FarSounder upgraded its data sharing capabilities with an optional cloud service that is provided at no charge to its customers. This cloud service allows users to anonymously share their collected bathymetry map across the FarSounder fleet and with Seabed 2030. In return, they receive the aggregate map created from all of the FarSounder user contributions.

 

 

This year, new citizen science capabilities were added to the FarSounder system. A recent software update added a simple interface for logging both whale sightings and floating trash. If users opt-in, these logs are automatically uploaded to FarSounder’s cloud service and will be anonymously passed on to a variety of conservation organizations, including Ocean Wise, Whale Alert, and Eyesea. These systems consolidate public reports with verified sightings from research institutions, expanding the available data used for marine mammal protection.

FarSounder’s crowdsourced bathymetry and observation logging capabilities enable its customers to easily make meaningful contributions without impacting the vessel’s normal operations. Citizen science can turn every ship into a potential research vessel, creating a distributed network of environmental stewards.

Clearly, the installation of below-water sensors such as 3D forward-looking sonar and above-water sensors such as cameras with automatic recognition software provide a great benefit to the vessel on which they are installed. However, when it comes to reducing the risk of whale ship strikes, not every vessel can justify installing such systems. That’s why FarSounder is proud to support the Whale and Vessel Safety Taskforce (WAVS), which is working on a holistic, industry-wide risk reduction strategy.

The WAVS initiative is building an aggregated whale activity database by fusing data from satellite imagery, aerial surveys, citizen science observations, shipboard sensors and government research programs. The data will then be analyzed to find areas of high whale density. The ultimate goal is to feed this intelligence into navigational tools, such as multifunction and ECDIS displays aboard any vessel.

By identifying and broadcasting zones of high whale density, WAVS empowers mariners to make safer routing decisions, even without specialized hardware on board.

The initiative also promotes the integration of whale risk information into standard marine navigation interfaces to improve industry-wide adoption.

FarSounder’s contributions to the taskforce include helping to develop the technical roadmap, including on-ship sensors such as its own 3D-FLS, as well as other sources of whale sightings and outreach for this important initiative.

Through the development process of its products over the past few decades, the FarSounder team has learned a lot about whales and how to operate safely around them. In the overall task of protecting whales, FarSounder understands that not only are technology and data vital, but so is human knowledge. That’s why FarSounder is launching a Whale Spotting and Safe Vessel Operations training course based on everything the team has learned over the years. This class is not a FarSounder product class. Rather, it is an industry topic class, designed for captains, bridge officers and crew. Class topics include: how to spot and identify whales and how to operate vessels safely in areas with whales. The class also covers the basics of whale biology, discusses the threats they face, and how individuals can get involved with various citizen science initiatives.

This course was developed in collaboration with Amy Whitt from Azura, an environmental services company that provides protected species observers for government and commercial projects. Guest lecturers from leading marine science and conservation organizations have also been recruited to help present the materials. Details about the class can be found at: http://www.farsounder.com/whales.

Conclusion

Whale ship strikes are a preventable tragedy. With advances in sonar, integration with camera systems and powerful citizen science tools, we now have the ability to reduce this risk vastly. FarSounder is committed to being part of the solution through its technology products and by contributing to global efforts via training and industry collaboration.

The maritime sectors have both a responsibility and an opportunity to lead. By adopting tools such as 3D-FLS, contributing to WAVS, participating in training programs, and logging sightings, every vessel can become a protector of marine life.

Because saving whales isn’t just good for the ocean— it’s good for the planet and all mariners.

 

 

Matthew Zimmerman is the CEO of FarSounder.