The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has launched a dashboard showing a high level of compliance with North Atlantic right whale obligatory vessel speed zones.
The new dashboard takes its data from the shipboard AIS (Automatic Identification System).
The dashboard allows users to parse data by speed, time of year, speed zone, ship type and date. Currently, vessels longer than 65ft/19.8m are obligated to travel at speeds not exceeding 10knots in designated areas. This rule is in place to avoid collisions with migrating North Atlantic right whales and to give the animals a chance to escape. The dashboard shows that vessel compliance has dramatically increased since the speed zones were introduced back in 2008.
Commenting on the dashboard, Janet Coit, the assistant administrator for NOAA Fisheries, stated:
“One of our objectives in our North Atlantic right whale Road to Recovery is to monitor the effectiveness of conservation efforts, and this dashboard helps us do just that. This dashboard allows NOAA Fisheries to closely monitor and share how effective speed regulations are at slowing down vessel traffic to reduce the threat of vessel collisions to right whales.”
You can find out more information about the interactive dashboard here.
