Dash for gas puts Canada's whales in danger from tanker traffic

On a quiet summer evening last month, the crew of the Northern Expedition spotted a dark shape surfacing from the water off Canada's west coast. Earlier that day, crew members on the passenger ferry had made a similar sighting, and only narrowly avoided striking a humpback whale by ordering the ferry's powerful engines to be reversed.

- Leyland Cecco

This time, the momentum of the 150-metre vessel was too much. It struck the hulking cetacean, sending the dull, jarring sound of metal against tissue reverberating throughout the ship. The crew were devastated; the head of BC Ferries called the collision "disturbing". Nobody knows if the whale survived.

Collisions between large whales and even larger ships in this area have been growing more common as marine traffic increases, including a spate of deadly collisions this summer. Now, with the opening of a huge liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in 2025, which will transform the deep fjords of northern British Columbia into a crowded marine highway, researchers are warning of what is likely to be a "dire" increase in whale deaths.