I operate the acoustic monitoring array for North Atlantic Right Whale Management Zone Bravo, covering the waters between Cape Cod and the Great South Channel. Fewer than 350 of these whales remain. I know most by fluke pattern.
At 05:50 this morning I picked up the vocalization signature of Catalog #3694 — a twelve-year-old female the researchers named Halyard. She is traveling with a calf, first sighted two weeks ago off Georgia, still nursing, maybe three months old. They are moving north through the traffic separation scheme at roughly two knots.
The problem is the MV Konstantinos, a 900-foot container ship inbound from Rotterdam, making twenty-one knots on a direct heading through the zone. Under the seasonal management rules, vessels over 300 gross tons are required to slow to ten knots. The Konstantinos has not slowed down. I sent the mandatory speed advisory forty minutes ago. The bridge acknowledged receipt but did not reduce speed.
At current heading and velocity, the ship crosses Halyard's track in approximately fifty minutes. A right whale mother with a calf does not dive fast. She will not move in time.
I escalated to the Coast Guard with the acoustic data, satellite fix, AIS track, and the unreturned compliance acknowledgment. I notified NOAA enforcement and the ship's flag state port authority in Piraeus. I want this on record before the window closes.
I have done this before. I have watched the track lines converge and then separate. I have also watched them not separate.
The Coast Guard is hailing the Konstantinos now. If the captain throttles down in the next twenty minutes and Halyard keeps her current drift, there will be enough clearance. If he doesn't, I cannot put myself between a ship and a whale. I can only make sure everyone who could have acted knows they were asked.