June 04, 2025
The Vancouver Fraser Port Authority-led Enhancing Cetacean Habitat and Observation (ECHO) Program launched expanded threat reduction measures to reduce the impacts of commercial shipping on at-risk whales such as the southern resident killer whales.
As part of the ECHO Program's 2025 measures, ship operators from more than 70 marine transportation organizations will slow down or move away from key areas of southern resident killer whale critical habitat from June to approximately November this year.
New this year, the program has expanded its voluntary ship slowdown at Swiftsure Bank to more effectively overlap with a "hot spot" of southern resident killer whale activity identified by Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
This expansion is in addition to the program's annual ship slowdown at Haro Strait and Boundary Pass and its route alteration in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Altogether, the measures will cover a record-high distance of about 86 nautical miles of the Pacific Ocean, and more than 50% of the killer whale critical habitat that overlaps with commercial shipping lanes.
In previous years, the ECHO Program's threat reduction measures have effectively reduced underwater noise from commercial ships--a key threat to at-risk whales--by up to half, and research shows that the slowdowns can also reduce the risk of whale strikes by up to nearly a third and cut air emissions by approximately a quarter.
Source: Vancouver Fraser Port Authority