CALIFORNIA environmentalists are demanding the federal government slow down from their usual 20 knots to 10 knots to avoid collisions with whales while transiting marine sanctuaries.

    Over the last decade, 50 whales off the California coast have been hit by ships, reported the Miami Herald. Last year, a half dozen whales were reportedly hit.

    Four groups have submitted a petition asking the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to set up a 10-knot speed limit for large commercial vessels travelling though the state's four National Marine Sanctuaries in the Channel Islands, Monterey Bay, Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank, reported The Associated Press. The NOAA, which oversees marine sanctuaries, said it would review the petition.

    Pressing for the slow down are Environmental Defence Centre, the Centre for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth and Pacific Environment. A speed limit would help protect endangered blue, humpback and fin whales from being run over.

    "The overlap of these shipping lanes with California's national marine sanctuaries puts sanctuary wildlife at great risk," they wrote in the petition. "While we cannot likely change the behaviour of whales and other species so as to avoid ship strikes, we can and must regulate vessel practices to minimise this risk."

    Shipping groups say a speed limit would greatly delay cargo from reaching port and more than double the time it takes the fastest vessels to travel through the sanctuaries. A quick Google shows the most affected area would be the Port of Oakland as large marine sanctuaries like north and south of the inlet that formed F.

    They suggest that changing shipping routes to send vessels around the sanctuaries would be a better alternative, the report said.

(Resource:http://www.shippingonline.cn/)