{"id":912789,"date":"2026-06-14T16:12:47","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T21:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/14\/whale-strike-risk-rises-as-shipping-surges-off-sa-coast\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T16:12:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T21:12:47","slug":"whale-strike-risk-rises-as-shipping-surges-off-sa-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/14\/whale-strike-risk-rises-as-shipping-surges-off-sa-coast\/","title":{"rendered":"Whale strike risk rises as shipping surges off SA coast"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Ship<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Ship ahoy: The analysis found that the number of large, fast-moving vessels travelling faster than 15 knots \u2014 considered the greatest ship-strike
\nthreat to whales \u2014 has quadrupled since late 2023. Photo: University of Pretoria\u2019s Whale Unit at the Mammal Research Institute<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As conflict in the Middle East redraws global shipping routes, scientists are warning that South Africa\u2019s west coast is becoming an emerging danger zone for whales<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thousands of commercial vessels avoiding instability in the Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz are rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope, dramatically increasing maritime traffic through some of the world\u2019s richest whale habitats.<\/p>\n

New preliminary research presented to the International Whaling Commission<\/a> by researchers from the University of Pretoria\u2019s Whale Unit at the Mammal Research Institute, Afriseas Solutions and the International Fund for Animal Welfare, found extensive overlap between whale habitats<\/a>\u00a0 and major shipping corridors around Cape Town, Saldanha Bay and Cape Agulhas.<\/p>\n

The analysis found that the number of large, fast-moving vessels travelling faster than 15 knots \u2014 considered the greatest ship-strike threat<\/a> to whales \u2014 has quadrupled since late 2023.<\/p>\n

The assessment combines species distribution models for six whale species \u2014 Bryde\u2019s whale, Southern right whale, Humpback whale, Fin whale, Sei whale, Sperm whale \u2014 with vessel traffic data to map areas of heightened exposure risk along South Africa\u2019s southwest coast.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe risk has increased very simply because there\u2019s more ships,\u201d said professor Els Vermeulen<\/a> the chief scientist of the whale unit.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so we did a risk assessment to kind of pinpoint the areas where that risk is highest but it doesn\u2019t mean we see an increased mortality, it doesn\u2019t mean we see an increase in injuries. If anything, a lot of mortality related to ship strikes in general globally is cryptic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vermeulen explained that whale deaths from ship strikes are often invisible. \u201cIt happens offshore, if whales get hit, they will sink \u2013 they don\u2019t necessarily strand for us to see so we can\u2019t go around waiting for data to see an increase in mortality.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we have an increase in shipping, we know there\u2019s an increased risk and what we did is try to map where that high risk is and how that overlaps with the distribution of different whales.\u201d<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s recorded data reflects this invisibility. \u201cThe numbers we have just shows it\u2019s super low; we have just, in the last 50 years of stranding data and we can see that less than 1% of that relates to ship strike and confirms a lot of what might be happening is cryptic, we don\u2019t see it per se,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

According to the preliminary assessment, the southwestern Cape coast is one of southern Africa\u2019s busiest maritime corridors, anchored by major ports including Cape Town and Saldanha Bay, as well as a key mineral export terminal at Saldanha. It is also an established global shipping route.<\/p>\n

In recent years, pressure on this already congested sea space has increased further. Geopolitical instability in the Red Sea has led to about 18 international shipping companies rerouting vessels around the Cape of Good Hope. This diversion has significantly increased vessel traffic along South Africa\u2019s west coast.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cruise ship activity has also risen, with Cape Town recording 83 cruise ship calls in the 2024\/25 season.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the region supports productive fisheries, including deep-sea trawl, longline, purse seine and small-scale artisanal fisheries across Cape Town, Saldanha Bay, St Helena Bay and Lamberts Bay.<\/p>\n

The authors warned that this convergence of intensive shipping, fishing activity and high densities of recovering whale populations has created an elevated risk of whale ship strikes along the southwest coast.<\/p>\n

The International Whaling Commission has identified ship strikes as one of the most serious global threats to large whale populations and has recommended a detailed risk assessment for the approaches to the Port of Cape Town.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The International Maritime Organisation has also been working on measures to reduce strike risk globally. A recent global review further highlights southern Africa as a major gap in ship-strike management and flags the region as requiring urgent attention.<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s southwestern coast and the Benguela upwelling system<\/a> support globally significant populations of humpback, southern right, Bryde\u2019s, blue, fin and sei whales, as well as sperm whales.<\/p>\n

In recent years, scientists have also documented humpback whale \u201csupergroups\u201d \u2014 large feeding aggregations of dozens, sometimes hundreds, of whales in confined areas linked to favourable conditions in the Benguela ecosystem.<\/p>\n

According to the preliminary assessment, this convergence has created a zone of elevated strike exposure where whale habitats and shipping corridors overlap most intensely around Cape Town, Saldanha Bay, Cape Point and Cape Agulhas.<\/p>\n

The researchers found that ship-strike risk is now a present and pressing issue for both inshore and offshore species. The study also highlights suspected underreporting of whale ship strikes, citing research indicating that only 0.6% of more than 7 000 recorded cetacean mortality and morbidity cases in South Africa over 50 years were attributed to vessel collisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis figure seems implausibly low given the demonstrated overlap between whales and shipping,\u201d the preliminary assessment said. \u201cLimited carcass recovery and observations (reflecting the high current speeds and high energy coastlines of the region), difficulty in assigning cause of death and the near absence of offshore detection all likely contribute to this underestimation.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, the researchers argue, strike data alone cannot be relied upon to assess risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsequently, strike incidence records alone cannot serve as a reliable measure of risk and model-based approaches and the drawing on international experiences are essential to identify areas of concern.\u201d<\/p>\n

The modelling shows that vessel traffic has increased substantially since December 2023, with the fastest ships \u2014 those most likely to cause lethal collisions \u2014 rising by a factor of four.<\/p>\n

The analysis suggests that relatively modest changes to shipping routes could significantly reduce risk.<\/p>\n

Shifting lanes slightly further offshore \u2014 by less than 20 nautical miles \u2014 could reduce strike exposure by 20% to 50% depending on species, while having minimal impact on voyage distances that often exceed 12000 nautical miles.<\/p>\n

The greatest reductions were estimated for Bryde\u2019s whales (50%), humpback whales (40%) and southern right whales (31%). Even offshore species such as fin and sperm whales showed measurable reductions in risk.<\/p>\n

However, the researchers caution these results are preliminary. \u201cThe risk estimates are based on relative occurrence probabilities from SDMs [species distribution models] rather than absolute density data.\u201d<\/p>\n

Offshore whale distributions remain poorly understood and require further research, including dedicated surveys and tracking.<\/p>\n

For Vermeulen, the challenge is to balance precaution with data limitations. \u201cWe can\u2019t quantify what this means for populations and it\u2019s not something we can even try to attempt to quantify because again if we don\u2019t know what the mortality rate is, we can\u2019t see how that impacts a population, right, so I don\u2019t think we need to wait for that either.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have an issue, it\u2019s very simple. There\u2019s more ships and we have a lot of whales in our waters so that means there is an increased risk; it means we need to mitigate and minimise risks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Researchers are focusing on what is feasible with current data. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of shipping lanes that come together around the Cape of Good Hope,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s quite a big hotspot because all the different lanes come together, they congregate in that area.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then you have something called port approaches. It\u2019s where the ships divert from the lane and they go into port. And so you can\u2019t reroute a port approach because they obviously have to go to port so that\u2019s usually where you look at speed restrictions in certain areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vermeulen said international discussions are already underway with shipping bodies and regulators. \u201cWe\u2019re not pointing fingers at anyone, this is a global issue that has led ships to reroute for human safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of these stakeholders who are shipping companies and the World Shipping Council and the International Maritime Organisation, they\u2019re all sitting with us, they\u2019re all keen to talk about this \u2026 A lot of them are very happy to adhere to guidelines, even voluntarily, so once in SA waters it\u2019s going to be up to us and the government now to say, okay these are the guidelines you want you to follow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zolile Nqayi, spokesperson for the environment department, said it has not undertaken an assessment \u201cin view of the recent occurrence of this increased ship traffic\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department is, however, aware of the concerns that have been raised. These matters were also recently discussed at the International Whaling Commission meetings in Bled, Slovenia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nqayi said the department has a strandings programme in which it and other collaborators investigate whale strandings and mortality incidents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRecords are kept of these incidents and potential reasons for these strandings and mortalities are identified if possible. This includes ship strikes \u2026 This is an active programme of the Department. Data is collected and captured for known shore-based strandings or mortalities.\u201d<\/p>\n

On whether the department is considering mitigation measures such as vessel speed restrictions, rerouted shipping lanes or whale-alert systems in high-risk areas, Nqayi said such mitigation will need to be driven by the shipping authorities \u2013 the department of transport \u2013 in consultation with the department. \u201cMitigating measures will be recommended by the department.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vermeulen said researchers are particularly concerned about the humpback whale supergroups that form off the west coast during summer months.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have these very large aggregations of hundreds of humpback whales and those kinds of concentrations or densities of whales really worry us the most especially with port approaches because these ships then come very close to shore,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd whales that are feeding might not be very much aware of their surroundings or they\u2019re very much engaged in other types of behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Large whales are especially vulnerable because of their size and the limits of ship manoeuvrability. \u201cTo divert a ship of that size last minute because now you just saw a whale in front of you is fairly impossible,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Whales, she warned, may struggle to detect large vessels acoustically. \u201cThe whale may not necessarily know where the front of that ship is because they depend so much on acoustic signals,\u201d she said. \u201cThat is something that might limit them to avoid large vessels when they\u2019re close by.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Sheree Bega
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ship ahoy: The analysis found that the number of large, fast-moving vessels travelling faster than 15 knots \u2014 considered the greatest ship-strike threat to whales \u2014 has quadrupled since late 2023. Photo: University of Pretoria\u2019s Whale Unit at the Mammal Research Institute As conflict in the Middle East redraws global shipping routes, scientists are warning<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":912790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1384,26957],"tags":[6930,11820],"class_list":["post-912789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-strike","category-whale","tag-strike","tag-whale"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=912789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/912790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}