With global ecotourism one of the fastest growing sectors of the travel industry [1] and human recreation one of the leading causes of a global restructuring of animal distribution [2], it’s essential to find ways to avoid harming animals, while taking pleasure in connecting with nature.
Research scientist Valeria Serafini of the independent conservationWhy is animal conservation important? Animal conservation is important, because animals are the only mechanism to create biodiversity, which is the mechanism that creates a habitable planet for humans. Without animals, the energy from today’s plants (algae, trees, flowers etc) will eventually reach the atmosphere and ocean, much of it as carbon. The quantity of this plant-based waste is so More group OceanSounds Norway has been on board the MS Bard, newly built by whale-watching company Brim Explorer in the city of Tromsø in northern Norway. Brim Explorer are pioneering the latest in electric technology to try to cut both underwater noise and carbon emissions from whale-watching vessels.
“Vessels with an electric motor produce lower levels of noise than petrol and diesel-powered engines, implying a potential benefit for animals, especially in the lower-frequencies”, says Valeria.
Despite this, electric engines still produce some noise, so Valeria’s work will also focus on some of the fjord’s famous residents, such as Long-finned Pilot Whales and Killer Whales, that have higher-frequency calls.
The underwater noise from traditional diesel-powered vessels on Killer Whales is staggering. In this recording by Ocean Sounds founder, Heike Vester (below), compare the sound of Killer Whale whistles and clicks to when the boat starts its engine around 50 seconds in. In British Columbia, it’s been reported that diesel-powered whale-watching boats can mask Killer Whale calls 14km away [3]. No prizes for anyone can guess what impact that has on the ability of echolocating animals to feed themselves.
in order to address these obvious problems, Brim Explorer co-founders, Agnes Árnadóttir and Espen Larsen-Hakkebo, opted to build their whale-watching ships to a very high environmental standard, both to improve guest experience and reduce harm to the environment. Valeria has been on board helping them collect recordings and whale sightings as part of ongoing improvement work.
“It quickly became apparent to us”, says Espen Larsen-Hakkebo, “that we had to think of the whole life-cycle analysis of the ship: what does it cost to build? What are the environmental impacts? How long does it last? And, what do we do at the end of life?”
The lightweight vessels were constructed using as much recycled and recyclable aluminium as possible, as it was necessary to offset the heavy batteries. The electric engines eliminate almost all of above-water noise and vibration, making a more pleasant customer-experience and even the propellers are specially designed, to reduce underwater noise from cavitation.
Apart from noise reduction, the 800 kWh batteries are charged every night and can run the ship for 10 hours at 10 knots, meaning zero-emissions of poisonous atmospheric particles and 209 tonnes of carbon emission reduction. That’s a saving of about 80,000 litres of diesel each year–and the vessel is 100% charged using green energyEnergy and nutrients are the same thing. Plants capture energy from the Sun and store it in chemicals, via the process of photosynthesis. The excess greenery and waste that plants create, contain chemicals that animals can eat, in order to build their own bodies and reproduce. When a chemical is used this way, we call it a nutrient. As we More, because almost all energy production in Norway comes from hydropower and wind power.
Here you can listen to Agnes Árnadóttir and Espen Larsen-Hakkebo talking about the project.
Despite the engineering and technical challenges, Brim Explorer proves it’s possible to create a business that can make a concerted effort at a complete-lifecycle assessment of its impacts and find ways to avoid these, where at all possible.
For the whales and the entire health of the Norwegian fjord systems and local fisheries, it’s going to be essential. If tourists become an encumbrance, everyone will lose the chance to enjoy engaging with nature.
Think about this next time you’re on a whale-watching boat and try to choose carefully, who you go with, and if necessary let them know your concerns.
If you’d like to support Ocean Sounds’ work in Norway, please consider a donation here.
- Sustainability Watch: Ecotourism (2009). EBSCO Sustainability Watch www.ebscohost.com https://ebscosustainability.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/ecotourism.pdf
- Doherty, T.S., Hays, G.C. & Driscoll, D.A. Human disturbance causes widespread disruptionThe result of an action that creates a sudden change in the stability of an ecosystem or process. This tends to create a gap where there is free surplus energy and organisms will move in to fill the space. Disruption might be a tree fall, or the application of pesticide to farmland. Disruption is important to maintain dynamics in ecosystems More of animal movement. Nat Ecol Evol (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-01380-1
- 173. Erbe, C., UNDERWATER NOISE OF WHALE-WATCHING BOATS AND POTENTIAL EFFECTS ON KILLER WHALES (ORCINUS ORCA), BASED ON AN ACOUSTIC IMPACT MODELThe process, either mathematically or in the human brain, of creating an internal version of something that we can refer to, to better understand how it functions and our place within. Scientific modelling is where we take the best knowledge we have and build a version of what will happen, if we assume certain parameters. For example, we might model More. Marine Mammal Science, 2002. 18(2): p. 394-418.
- Kuningas, S., Similä, T., & Hammond, P. (2014). Population size, survival and reproductive rates of northern Norwegian killer whales (Orcinus orca) in 1986–2003. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom,94(6), 1277-1291. doi:10.1017/S0025315413000933
