Right Whale Migration Tracking
Seguin Island Light Station has taken an active role in helping protect the North Atlantic Right Whale by becoming a relay station for Station Keeper. Station Keeper monitors shipping speeds of commercial shipping in the region of Casco Bay and advises large ships to lower their speed to less than 10 knots in the Right Whale protection area. At slower speeds ships have more time to maneuver around pods of whales as well as the whales having time to get out of the way.
Below is a link to view where the whales have been spotted in the last 14 days along the Atlantic coast.
Protecting North Atlantic Right Whales
StationKeeper:
Most vessels 65 feet or longer are asked to travel at 10 knots or less in certain locations, called seasonal management areas for Right Whales, along the U.S. East Coast at certain times of the year. This is aimed at reducing the chances of collisions with North Atlantic Right Whales. StationKeeper, developed by Maritime Information Systems, Inc. monitors commercial shipping traffic on the existing maritime AIS system which is required on commercial cargo ships. AIS receivers are navigation safety devices that transmit and monitor the location and characteristics of vessels in federal and international waters in real time.
For more information on StationKeeper https://www.motioninfo.com/stationkeeper
Design:
When a ship is exceeding 10 knots in a designated Right Whale management area, a StationKeeper relay station transmits the following message by way of the ship’s AIS receiver and charting system display to the ship’s bridge, “Max speed 10 knots per 50CFR224.105-31″. In the tests performed on Cape Cod Bay, 85% of ships responded to this message and slowed their speed.
Opportunity and Operations:
Becoming a relay station for StationKeeper offers a wonderful opportunity for Seguin Island Light Station to serve in actively protecting the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale. FOSILS is proud to add this worthy maritime program to the operations on the island. We thank you for continued support of this historic landmark as we take on this function to protect the North American Right Whale.
How you can help:
In the past we put our solar array to “sleep” for the winter and “wake” it up in May. Station Keeper is intended to run year round which adds some challenges to our island. FOSILS will need to make adjustments to our energy system during the summer of 2025 to for next winter.
Please visit https://seguinisland.org/support/donate/ to join Friends of Seguin or donate.
