Humpback whales are recovering globally, but vessel strikes are an increasing cause of injury and death as shipping traffic grows in their feeding and breeding grounds.
Humpback whales struck by vessels experience traumatic injuries — propeller lacerations that can extend meters across the body, blunt-force trauma from hull impacts, and internal hemorrhaging. Animals with serious injuries may survive for days or weeks before dying, often visible to observers but impossible to treat. The welfare scale of vessel strikes intersects with a conservation success story: recovering whale populations swimming into increasingly busy shipping lanes create growing conflict that requires speed restrictions and routing measures to resolve.