Vessel Strikes Leave Humpback Whales With Horrific Injuries Along Australia's East Coast, WWF Warns Public

SYDNEY — Citizen scientists along Australia's east coast have captured a series of disturbing images showing humpback whales, including newborn calves, suffering severe injuries from collisions with boats, prompting the World Wide Fund for Nature to renew calls for stronger protections as international regulators warn that vessel strikes represent a growing global threat to whales and dolphins.

The images, shared with WWF-Australia by whale watch guides and citizen scientists operating along the migration route, show wounds ranging from fresh propeller lacerations to blunt force trauma, underscoring how even routine boat traffic can inflict life-threatening damage on the animals as they travel along one of the busiest coastal shipping and recreational boating corridors in the Southern Hemisphere.

Among the most striking images are photographs of two humpback calves photographed in Hervey Bay, Queensland, in September. One calf was found with fresh propeller wounds, while the other showed signs of blunt force trauma to its tail. The images were captured by Isabel Taylor, a senior naturalist and tour guide with Pacific Whale Foundation Eco Adventures Australia, who said she experienced a mix of shock, concern, anger and sadness upon witnessing the injuries, adding that the moment was deeply disturbing for her whale watch guests as well. The mother of the calf with propeller injuries has a long research history in the region, having first been documented in Hervey Bay in 2004 as a young subadult and maintaining a profile on the whale identification platform Happy Whale.

A separate incident was documented on Aug. 28, also in Hervey Bay, when citizen scientist and Blue Dolphin Marine Tours deckhand Silke Stuckenbrock filmed a subadult humpback whale bearing propeller injuries extending along its left side. Stuckenbrock said it was the first time she had seen such an extensive boat-related injury, noting that the propeller marks appeared to have come from a relatively small vessel, which she said made the extent of the damage particularly striking given the size of the animal involved. She said the incident served as a reminder for vessel operators to keep a proper lookout and reduce speed, particularly during whale season, both for the safety of the whales and for boaters themselves.

A third documented case came from farther south, off Bondi Beach in Sydney, where drone operator Jason Iggleden, who runs the Drone Shark App, captured footage of a humpback whale with propeller injuries in June. Iggleden said he did not realize what he had captured until reviewing the footage afterward, underscoring how such injuries can go unnoticed even by those actively monitoring coastal waters for marine life.

Chris Johnson, WWF's global lead on whale and dolphin conservation, said the images serve as heartbreaking reminders that vessel strikes pose a genuine risk to whales migrating along Australia's east coast, noting that even small vessels are capable of inflicting severe injuries. Johnson said reducing that risk would require a combination of measures, including seasonal speed limits in areas where whale and vessel traffic are likely to overlap, along with detection systems that could give boat operators more time to slow down or change course, approaches he said have already been implemented elsewhere and could be adapted for Australian waters. WWF is calling for the development of a coordinated vessel strike plan involving local communities, scientists, non-governmental organizations, industry and government, with the goal of making coastal waters safer for both whales and people while protecting what the organization describes as vital migratory corridors.

The warnings come as the International Whaling Commission, meeting in Hobart, passed a resolution on Friday acknowledging that vessel strikes represent an increasing problem on a global scale. The resolution calls for safer shipping routes, slower vessel speeds in high-risk areas and improved reporting mechanisms to help reduce collisions between vessels and whales or dolphins internationally, reflecting growing concern among marine conservation bodies that the issue has outpaced existing regulatory protections in many parts of the world.

The scale of Australia's humpback whale population adds urgency to the issue, according to WWF. The organization noted that the east coast humpback population had fallen to as few as 200 to 500 animals by 1962, prior to the international whaling ban, but has since recovered to between 50,000 and 60,000 whales. That recovery, while considered a conservation success story, has placed growing numbers of whales directly in the path of heavy commercial shipping traffic and recreational boating activity along the east coast, making the region one of several global hotspots for whale-vessel collision risk. Other areas identified as facing similar risks include the west and east coasts of North America, the southern waters of South America and Africa, seas in Northeast Asia, and the eastern North Atlantic Ocean.

Among the most widely recognized cases of vessel-strike injury is a female humpback whale known as Bladerunner, who has become something of an international symbol of the issue due to the extensive propeller wounds running down her left side. Bladerunner was reportedly injured off Sydney in 2001 and has continued to migrate along Australia's east coast each year since. Citizen scientist Tracey Harris, who has photographed the whale on multiple occasions, including once while Bladerunner was pregnant, said it was both sad to witness the extent of the whale's injuries and remarkable to see her resilience, noting that she was struck by how strong the animal must have been to survive such severe wounds and go on to give birth in the years that followed.

WWF's broader push for stronger vessel-strike protections is tied to its involvement in the Blue Corridors Initiative, a collaborative effort aimed at protecting migratory marine species along their ocean travel routes. With humpback whale numbers continuing to recover and vessel traffic along Australia's coastline remaining heavy, conservationists say the recent string of documented injuries illustrates the scale of the challenge still facing efforts to make coastal waters safer for the species, even as the broader population trend remains a positive one for a species that came close to being wiped out along Australia's coast within living memory.