Monitoring boat speed can help save whales

Marine radar technology can accurately detect vessel speed, which could potentially help lower the number of boats hitting whales. In places like the San Francisco Bay, small recreational or commercial boats can strike whales and affect their populations. While an Automatic Identification System often monitors larger commercial vessels, smaller boats sometimes go undetected. As a result, speed limits aren’t enforced for smaller vehicles in areas where whales are feeding or migrating. In a study published in Sensors, researchers tested if radar could detect smaller boat speed violations and found that it was accurate 95% of the time. “Radar is a widely available tool that is accessible to a large audience, such as enforcement agencies, marine resource managers and researchers,” said the study’s lead author, Samantha King, senior scientist for ProtectedSeas Marine Monitor (M2), in a press release. The accuracy values from our study can be used to confidently enforce speed limits using radar.”

Read the study in Sensors.