Widespread exposure of marine parks, whales, and whale sharks to shipping
Vincent Raoult
A * , Vanessa Pirotta B , Troy F. Gaston A , Brad Norman C D , Samantha Reynolds C E , Tim M. Smith A , Mike Double F , Jason How G and Matt W. Hayward H I
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A School of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Newcastle, Ourimbah, NSW 2250, Australia.
B Marine Predator Research Group, Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia.
C ECOCEAN Inc, 439 Rapids Road, Serpentine, WA 6125, Australia.
D Harry Butler Institute, Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA, Australia.
E School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia.
F Australian Marine Mammal Centre, Australian Antarctic Division, Kingston, Tas. 7050, Australia.
G Department Primary Industries and Regional Development, Perth, WA, Australia.
H School of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW 2300, Australia.
I Centre for Invasion Biology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 0002, South Africa.
Marine and Freshwater Research 74(1) 75-85 https://doi.org/10.1071/MF22050
Submitted: 22 February 2022 Accepted: 3 November 2022 Published: 28 November 2022
© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
Context: Shipping impacts are a major environmental concern that can affect the behaviour and health of marine mammals and fishes. The potential impacts of shipping within marine parks is rarely considered during the planning process.
Aims: We assessed the areal disturbance footprint of shipping around Australia, its overlap with marine parks, and known locations of megafauna, so as to identify areas of concern that warrant further investigation.
Methods: Automatic Identification System (AIS) shipping data from 2018 to 2021 were interpreted through a kernel-density distribution and compared with satellite data from ∼200 individuals of megafauna amalgamated from 2003 to 2018, and the locations of marine parks.
Key results: Over 18% of marine parks had shipping exposure in excess of 365 vessels per year. Around all of Australia, 39% of satellite-tag reports from whale shark and 36.7% of pygmy blue and humpback whale satellite-tag reports were in moderate shipping-exposure areas (>90 ships per year). Shipping exposure significantly increased from 2018 despite the pandemic, including within marine parks.
Conclusions: These results highlight the wide-scale footprint of commercial shipping on marine ecosystems that may be increasing in intensity over time.
Implications: Consideration should be made for assessing and potentially limiting shipping impacts along migration routes and within marine parks.
Keywords: acoustic pollution, AIS, marine parks, satellite tag, shark, ship strikes, shipping, whale.
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