Slower, quieter, cleaner, safer: protecting Bay Area Whales and Dolphins
Off the coast of California lie four "Yosemites of the Sea" where whales, porpoises, sea lions, dolphins, and other marine wildlife roam. The Bay Area, Pacific Environment's home, is home to three contiguous National Marine Sanctuaries - the Cordell Bank, Monterey Bay and the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuaries and dozens of state Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).
But, the Bay Area and California’s coastal waters are seeing rapidly increasing shipping traffic that threatens the wildlife these sanctuaries were created to protect! Virtually unregulated, about 11,000 oil tankers and cargo ships travel to our busy ports annually adding to global warming, and posing a significant threat to the survival of marine mammals, fish and other marine species - largely acoustic animals that survive and thrive by sound. Large vessels are a major one cause of whale deaths by ship strike, and the largest producer of low frequency ocean noise,- flooding this sound-sensitive underwater world with incessant noise that interferes with whales ability to communicate, navigate, find food, detect prey and hear at all.
Pacific Environment's Marine Sanctuaries Program works to protect Bay Area whales, dolphins, and marine wildlife from human-made ocean noise and other shipping impacts in our marine sanctuaries off the coast of California. We are advocating a simple and practical solution: a speed limit of 10 knots for large vessels in our National Marine Sanctuaries and state Marine Protected Areas in order to reduce fatal ship strikes of marine mammals, reduce climate change emissions and resulting ocean acidification, air pollution, and ever increasing ocean noise pollution.
Experience the impacts of ocean noise first-hand! Join us for a trip this coming Fall to the Farallones Marine Sanctuary!
