The International Maritime Organization approved Panama’s proposal to implement new shipping lanes to help save the humpback whales.
Based on studies by Smithsonian marine ecologist Hector Guzman, the new shipping lanes are positioned to minimize overlap between shipping routes and humpback whale migration routes and reduce vessel speed four months a year at the peak of the whale overwintering season.
Guzman and a team of researchers estimate that over 1,000 humpback whales visit Panama year-round, and they have matched them to individuals sighted from the Antarctic Peninsula, Chile and Colombia.
Meanwhile, nearly 17,000 commercial vessels cross the Gulf of Panama each year, a number that is expected to increase significantly once the expanded locks are completed next year.
The new shipping lanes should reduce potential areas of collision between ships and whales by 93 percent and reduce the interactions between ships and whales by 95 percent in the Gulf of Panama.
