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Globally, movements of commercial vessels can facilitate the spread of marine non-indigenous species (NIS) beyond their current biogeographic ranges. Authorities at potential destination locations employ a number of biosecurity risk assessment strategies to estimate threat levels from potential origin locations, vulnerability levels of specific destination regions, or the consequences of successful establishment of particular NIS species. Among the many factors and processes that have an influence on the probability that NIS will survive transport and establish successfully at new locations, vessel type has been identified as an important risk factor. Different vessel types have different structural and operational characteristics that affect their overall level of marine biosecurity risk. Several recent studies have examined subsets of vessel types or vessel characteristics for their ability to spread NIS. While high-quality information is available via these endeavors, it is fragmented and not readily available as an integrated resource to support biosecurity regulators or other end-users. In this study, we synthesize available empirical data on a wide range of vessel types and characteristics to develop a framework that allows systematic quantification of the relative risk of NIS transfer by common commercial vessel types. We explain our approach for constructing the framework, from selection of key risk factors for inclusion, to selection of which datasets to use for those risk factors. The framework output is a set of risk scores which denote the relative biosecurity risk of common commercial vessel types. To demonstrate a potential application of our framework, we applied the risk scores to vessel visit data for commercial ports around New Zealand and assigned a relative risk level per port based on the arrival frequencies of different vessel types. The resulting per-port risk levels matched closely with the results of a prior benchmark study that employed sta

Entanglements and vessel strikes impact large whales worldwide. Post-event health status is often unknown because whales are seen once or over short spans that conceal long-term health declines. Well-studied populations with high site fidelity verified by photo-ID offer opportunity to confirm deaths, health declines and recoveries. We used known outcome entanglements and vessel strikes of right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) and humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) to model probabilities of deaths, health declines and recoveries with Random Forest (RF) classification trees. Variables included presence or absence of phrases from case narratives ('deep laceration', 'cyamid', 'healing', 'superficial') and a categorical variable for vessel size. Health status post-entanglement was correctly classified in 95.7% of right whale and 93.6% of humpback whale cases (expected by chance=50%). Health status post-vessel strike was correctly classified in 91.4% of right whale and 88.6% of humpback whale cases. Important variables included cyamid presence, emaciation, discolored skin, constricting entanglements, gear-free resightings, superficial or healing lacerations, and vessel size. Cross-validated RF models were applied to unknown outcome cases to estimate the probability of deaths, health declines and recoveries. Total serious injuries (probability of death or health decline > 0.50) assigned by RF were nearly equal to current injury assessment methods applied by biologists for known outcomes. However, RF consistently predicted higher serious injury totals for unknown outcomes, suggesting that current assessment methods may underestimate risk for cases lacking details or long-term observations. Advantages of the RF method include: 1) risk models are based on known outcomes; 2) unknown outcomes are assigned post-event health status probabilities; and 3) identification of important predictor variables improves data collection standards.

Ships' ballast water and sediments are vectors that contribute to the unintentional spread of aquatic non-native species globally. Ballast water management, as well as commissioning testing of ballast water management systems and compliance monitoring under the regulations of the International Maritime organization (IMO) aim at minimizing the unwanted spread of organisms. This study compiles data for treated ballast water samples collected and analyzed from 228 ships during 2017-2023. The samples were collected from the ballast discharge line or directly from the ballast tank for enumeration of living organism concentrations in the categories of ≥50µm and ballast water should be undertaken to ensure that the systems remain operational after commissioning and ships meet requirements of the D-2 standard. Furthermore, the study

We have had a lot of marine accidents that involved failure of the hull structures. Whether it was a crack in the midship region, or a total split-off of the hull girder, or failures due to propagation of cracks, the crux of the matter boils down to a handful of causes that are of great concern to ship designers and operators. Mostly, crack propagation takes place due to fatigue, which is not something this article is about. This article gives an insight into the causes that lead to the failure of the hull girder from a longitudinal strength point of view. And before we start, we have to ask ourselves a few questions. Why have ships split-off? Why have many hull structures split-off after grounding? Why are midships highly prone to such failures? Is it because of a design flaw? or for that matter, a glitch in the operation standards that have not been maintained?

We have had a lot of marine accidents that involved failure of the hull structures. Whether it was a crack in the midship region, or a total split-off of the hull girder, or failures due to propagation of cracks, the crux of the matter boils down to a handful of causes that are of great concern to ship designers and operators. Mostly, crack propagation takes place due to fatigue, which is not something this article is about. This article gives an insight into the causes that lead to the failure of the hull girder from a longitudinal strength point of view. And before we start, we have to ask ourselves a few questions. Why have ships split-off? Why have many hull structures split-off after grounding? Why are midships highly prone to such failures? Is it because of a design flaw? or for that matter, a glitch in the operation standards that have not been maintained?

The accumulation of aquatic organisms on the wetted surfaces of vessels (i.e., vessel biofouling) negatively impacts world-wide shipping through reductions in vessel performance and fuel efficiency, and increases in emissions. Vessel biofouling is also a potent mechanism for the introduction and spread of marine non-indigenous species. Guidance and regulations from the International Maritime organization, New Zealand, and California have recently been adopted to address biosecurity risks, primarily through preventive management. However, appropriate reactive management measures may be necessary for some vessels. Vessel in-water cleaning or treatment (VICT) has been identified as an important tool to improve operating efficiency and to reduce biosecurity risks. VICT can be applied proactively [i.e., to prevent the occurrence of, or to remove, microfouling (i.e., slime) or prevent the occurrence of macrofouling organisms - large, distinct multicellular organisms visible to the human eye], or reactively (i.e., to remove macrofouling organisms). However, unmanaged VICT includes its own set of biosecurity and water quality risks. Regulatory policies and technical advice from California and New Zealand have been developed to manage these risks, but there are still knowledge gaps related to the efficacy of available technologies. Research efforts are underway to address these gaps in order to inform the regulatory and non-regulatory application of VICT.

International limits on the concentrations of living organisms in ballast water are now in force for commercial ships. Microscopy-based, "direct count" assays estimate the concentrations of organisms. These assays are used in performance tests of Ballast Water Management Systems (BWMSs), which are shipboard technologies designed to reduce living organisms in ballast water to below the discharge limits. Here, we examine the factors that affect the method detection limit (MDL) of direct count assays. The MDL depends upon the volumes sampled, concentrated (or diluted), and analyzed, so the MDL will vary as these volumes vary from analysis-to-analysis. Decreasing the MDL to detect exceedingly rare individuals (e.g., ~1 individual per m3 or fewer) is possible, but problematic, given the challenges in analyzing dynamic communities of living organisms: increasing sample and analysis volumes to lower the MDL will likely accelerate the loss of individuals, as organisms are concentrated to several orders of magnitude above in situ concentrations and held for extended times. Results of direct count assays may be widely disseminated as an indicator of the performance of BWMSs, and when no organisms are detected, concentrations may be shown as "0 organisms per m3 or mL" rather than "-provides context to results and transparency into the sensitivity of the assay.

NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration (or&R) is busy at work to address a container spill off of the California coast. On February 7, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) contacted the NOAA Scientific Support Coordinator for California to report the loss of 24 shipping containers from the M/V President Eisenhower the prior night, approximately 64 nautical miles southwest of Monterey, California. Hazardous materials were not identified in any of the lost containers and it was not clear at the time of the report whether any containers might remain floating (e.g., were insulated or refrigerated). NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS) requested further trajectory information from or&R on the floating container to better inform the sanctuary spill response decision.

On Tuesday morning, the very large ore carrier Berge Bureya spilled approximately one ton of heavy fuel oil into the Straits of Malacca off of Tanjung Piai, Malaysia, just west of Singapore.

On Tuesday morning, the very large ore carrier Berge Bureya spilled approximately one ton of heavy fuel oil into the Straits of Malacca off of Tanjung Piai, Malaysia, just west of Singapore.

Green card or blue seas: Paypal founder backs visa-free floating city off California coast.

Miami's Choice: Bigger Ships or Coral Reefs?

Miami's Choice: Bigger Ships or Coral Reefs?

Canadian Arctic ore finds way through Northern Sea Route.

Abandoned at sea: the crews cast adrift without food, fuel or pay.

Trawler sank off Argentinian coast, two rescued, ten dead or missing.

Strikes between vessels and cetaceans have significantly increased worldwide in the last decades. The Canary Islands archipelago is a geographical area with an important overlap of high cetacean diversity and maritime traffic, including high-speed ferries. Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus), currently listed as a vulnerable species, are severely impacted by ship strikes. Nearly 60% of sperm whales' deaths are due to ship strikes in the Canary Islands. In such cases, subcutaneous, muscular and visceral extensive hemorrhages and hematomas, indicate unequivocal antemortem trauma. However, when carcasses are highly autolyzed, it is challenging to distinguish whether the trauma occurred ante- or post-mortem. The presence of fat emboli within the lung microvasculature is used to determine a severe "in vivo" trauma in other species. We hypothesized fat emboli detection could be a feasible, reliable and accurate forensic tool to determine ante-mortem ship strikes in stranded sperm whales, even in decomposed carcasses. In this study, we evaluated the presence of fat emboli by using an osmium tetroxide (OsO4)-based histochemical technique in lung tissue of 24 sperm whales, 16 of them with evidence of ship strike, stranded and necropsied in the Canaries between 2000 and 2017. About 70% of them presented an advanced autolysis. Histological examination revealed the presence of OsO4-positive fat emboli in 13 out of the 16 sperm whales with signs of ship strike, and two out of eight of the "control" group, with varying degrees of abundance and distribution. A classification and regression tree was developed to assess the cut off of fat emboli area determining the high or low probability for diagnosing ship-strikes, with a sensitivity of 89% and a specificity of 100%. The results demonstrated: (1) the usefulness of fat detection as a diagnostic tool for "in vivo" trauma, even in decomposed tissues kept in formaldehyde for long periods of time; and (2) that, during

Pirates of the Caribbean, a Disney Fantasy or a Real Threat?

During winter months, humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) frequent the coastal waters of Virginia near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Located within the Bay is Naval Station Norfolk, the world's largest naval military installation, and the Port of Virginia, the sixth busiest container port in the United States. These large seaports, combined with the presence of recreational boaters, commercial fishing vessels, and sport-fishing boats, result in a constant heavy flow of vessel traffic through the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and adjacent areas. From December 2015 to February 2017, 35 satellite tags were deployed on humpback whales to gain a better understanding on the occurrence, movements, site-fidelity, and overall behavior of this species within this high-traffic region. The tags transmitted data for an average of 13.7 days (range 2.7-43.8 days). Location data showed that at some point during tag deployment, nearly all whales occurred within, or in close proximity to, the shipping channels located in the study area. Approximately one quarter of all filtered and modeled locations occurred within the shipping channels. Hierarchical state-space modeling results suggest that humpback whales spend considerable time (82.0%) engaged in foraging behavior at or near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Of the 106 humpback whales photo-identified during this research, nine individuals (8.5%) had evidence of propeller strikes. One whale that had previously been tagged and tracked within shipping channels, was found dead on a local beach; a fatality resulting from a vessel strike. The findings from this study demonstrate that a substantial number of humpback whales frequent high-traffic areas near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, increasing the likelihood of injurious vessel interactions that can result in mortalities.

Assessments of ship-strike risk for large whales typically use a single year of ship traffic data and averaged predictions of species distributions. Consequently, they do not account for variability in ship traffic or species distributions. Variability could reduce the effectiveness of static management measures designed to mitigate ship-strike risk. We explore the consequences of interannual variability on ship-strike risk using multiple years of both ship traffic data and predicted fin, humpback, and blue whale distributions off California. Specifically, risk was estimated in four regions that are important for ship-strike risk management. We estimated risk by multiplying the predicted number of whales by the distance traveled by ships. To overcome the temporal mismatch between the available ship traffic and whale data, we classified the ship traffic data into nearshore and offshore traffic scenarios using the percentage of ship traffic traveling more than 24 nmi from the mainland coast, which was the boundary of a clean fuel rule implemented in 2009 that altered ship traffic patterns. We found that risk for fin and humpback whale populations off California increased as these species recovered from whaling. We also found that broad-scale, northward shifts in blue whale distributions throughout the North Pacific, likely in response to changes in oceanographic conditions, were associated with increased ship-strike risk off northern California. The magnitude of ship-strike risk for fin, humpback, and blue whales was influenced by the ship traffic scenarios. Interannual variability in predicted whale distributions also influenced the magnitude of ship-strike risk, but generally did not change whether the nearshore or offshore traffic scenario had higher risk. The consistency in the highest risk from the traffic scenarios likely occurred because areas containing the highest predicted number of whales were generally the same across years. The consistency in risk from th

Eight cargo ships beached or sank in typhoon.

Biological invasions often result from transfers of organisms during trade activities. In coastal ecosystems, commercial ships are a dominant source of species transfers globally, and ships' ballast water (BW) is a major focus of biosecurity management and policy to reduce invasions. While trade drives shipping patterns, diverse vessel types and behaviors exist such that the quantitative relationship between trade and BW dynamics is still poorly resolved, limiting both science and management. Here, we evaluated a new method to predict BW discharge using trade data, by explicitly considering known BW practices according to vessel and commodity type. Specifically, we estimated the relationship between tonnage of overseas exports and BW discharge volume for San Francisco Bay (SFB), California, as a model system to demonstrate this approach. Using extensive datasets on shipborne exports and BW discharge, we (a) evaluated spatial and temporal patterns across nearly 20 ports in this estuary from 2006 to 2014 and (b) developed a predictive model to estimate overseas BW discharge volume from foreign export tonnage for the whole estuary. Although vessel arrivals in SFB remained nearly constant from 2006 to 2014, associated tonnage of exported commodities more than doubled and BW discharge more than tripled. Increased BW volume resulted from increased frequency and per capita discharge of bulk carriers from Asia and tankers from western Central America and Hawaii, reflecting shifts in direction of commodity movement. The top 11 export commodities (59% of total export tonnage) were transported on bulk carriers or tankers. In a multivariate linear model, annual tonnage of these top 11 export commodities by vessel type were strong predictors of total bay-wide overseas BW discharge (adjusted R2 = 0.92), creating the potential to estimate past or future BW delivery in SFB. Bulk export tonnage provides valuable insights into BW flux, since most BW discharge to ports is driven by

Belt and Road countries will make or break the Paris Agreement.