KAUST Study Reveals Critical Protection Gaps for Giant Marine Creatures

International plans to increase marine protected areas (MPAs) to cover 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030 will not be sufficient to conserve many of the world’s largest marine creatures, according to new findings by hundreds of international scientists, including King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) researchers, as part of the MegaMove project.

 “Protecting the ocean requires a clear understanding of how marine life actually uses ocean spaces,” says Carlos Duarte, marine scientist at KAUST. “Imagine if pedestrian crossings were just randomly deployed in cities, rather than being concentrated in the busiest areas where they are needed most. Understanding how marine megafauna use the oceans for migration, residency, feeding, and breeding is critical to developing effective protection and conservation strategies.”

 Duarte and hundreds of scientists across the world collaborated to collate and analyze a vast marine megafauna tracking dataset: 11 million geographical positions gathered over three decades from 15,845 tracked individual animals across 121 species of marine megafauna. Their results show that both existing and proposed MPAs will need to be coupled with enforced mitigation strategies, including strict fishing regulations and separation of wildlife and boat traffic, if they are to achieve international goals for marine megafauna conservation.

 “Marine animals are highly mobile, often engaging in large, basin-wide migrations,” says Duarte. “From the largest creatures, such as whales and albatross, to smaller fish like the endangered European eel, they all make epic journeys to breed and feed. Accurately tracking these movements is no small feat.”

 For the current study, the team developed their own data analytics tools to unify all the data acquired across species and years into a single ‘biology year’ of movement in the ‘global ocean’. They then classified each individual geo-position based on the activity of each creature, labeling each position as ‘migrating’, ‘feeding’ or ‘reproducing’.

 “By aggregating data from individuals and species, we created a synoptic map of the world’s ‘hot spots’ for feeding and reproduction, and highlighted the migration corridors of marine megafauna,” says Duarte. “This revealed previously unknown features of their use of ocean space.”

 The team then aligned these data insights, including their synoptic map, with existing MPAs and exclusive economic zones (EEZs). Existing MPAs encompass only 7.5% of the total area used by creatures in the tracking dataset, and the animals spent over 85% of their time outside these protected areas. The locations of future MPAs therefore need careful consideration, and the team have estimated the best possible configuration of future protected areas to offer optimal protection to marine megafauna.

 “Our results should help identify critical ocean areas for protection. Also, individual nations have strong enforcement capabilities within their own EEZ jurisdictions, so they can choose to actively regulate human activities that harm marine animals, and designate specific areas for conservation and protection,” says Duarte. “Considerable challenges remain in securing and enforcing marine protected zones for international waters.”

 The researchers also examined global datasets regarding threats to marine wildlife, including fishing intensity, shipping intensity, plastic density, and water temperatures. Every year, thousands of great whales are killed by ship strikes. The team also found noise pollution from human activities to be ubiquitous across the oceans.

 The team is calling for greater scrutiny of fishing and industry practices, increased enforcement, and improved direct management of marine ecosystems. Their findings should help redirect marine traffic to safer corridors and substantially reduce the risks of ship strikes on marine animals.

 The MegaMove project aims to strengthen the evidence base for marine megafauna conservation and expand participation from researchers around the world.