A study revealed that **Chile** is the country that leads in **whale mortality** due to ship collisions.
For the study, they mapped the movements of **four whale species** distributed around the world, warning that maritime traffic covers 92% of the ranges of these species, and less than 7% of high-risk areas have **management strategies to prevent collisions**.
In Chile, the real extent of these collisions was unknown, but the study published on January 18th in the Marine Policy journal characterized and classified this type of accidents in the country for the first time.
The research identified Chile as the country with the **highest whale mortality rate** due to vessel collisions worldwide in the last decade.
## Factors and solutions on whale mortality
According to Susannah Buchan, oceanographer at the Center for Oceanographic Research of the Southeast Pacific (COPAS Coastal) and the Center for Advanced Studies in Arid Zones (CEAZA), and co-author of the study, this unexpected location was able to be contrasted with the **available scientific literature**, thus determining that the high collision rate that occurs in the country, according to this comparison parameter, is the highest in the world.
According to the research, of the 226 dead stranded whales recorded on the coast of Chile, 62% correspond to cases where the cause of death could not be determined. But in cases with identifiable causes, 28% was attributed to collisions, followed by 7% to entanglements, and 3% to natural predation. By far, vessel collisions are the main cause of non-natural death in whales in Chile.
The study analyzed 52 years of data (1972-2023) of **large cetacean** strandings on the Chilean coast (collected by the National Fisheries and Aquaculture Service, SERNAPESCA, in addition to universities, NGOs, and experts) along with maritime traffic patterns. The results highlight an alarming increase in whale mortalities due to collisions and their clear **relationship with maritime traffic**.
## Chile and whale deaths from collisions
Considering historical data since 1972, Chile ranks sixth in collision mortality. However, when the analysis is narrowed down to the last 12 years, since 2013 when **necropsies** began to be performed more systematically, Chile leads in whale mortality due to collisions with an average of five deaths of large cetaceans annually.
This alarming increase is due to three main effects: the increase in maritime traffic in recent decades, a possible -yet unconfirmed- increase in some whale populations after the closure of **commercial hunting** in the 1980s, and the improvement in the response capacity and diagnosis of these events.
*Cover photo by Simon Frenkel*
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