"A major cause of mortality" : how the war in the Middle East also threatens whales

In an unexpected cascading effect, wars and tensions in the Middle East are affecting groups of whales living part of the year in the ocean at the tip of Africa thousands of kilometers away.

THE risks of collisions between ships and cetaceans off the coast of South Africa “increased significantly” with the shift of traffic from the Suez Canal to the Cape of Good Hope, according to a scientific report presented this month to the International Whaling Commission (IWC), which l’AFP a consulté.

Collisions, major cause of mortality among whales

The subject has long been identified as a real problem by scientists and environmental advocates. Collisions, largely under-documented, constitute a “major cause of mortality among whales,” according to an article published in 2024 in the journal Science.

Videos published by sailors on social networks finally convinced Els Vermeulen, head of the cetacean research unit at the University of Pretoria, to study this risk at the tip of Africa.

“We would see people on cargo ships going through dense schools of humpback whales saying ‘Wow, look at all these beautiful whales we see. For me, it made my heart freeze because we knew they hit some of them…” she tells l’AFP.

Doubling of maritime traffic at the Cape of Good Hope

The effect of the increase in trafficking could be analyzed because it precedes the war led by the United States and Israel against Iran. On November 19, 2023, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, supported by Iran, attacked and captured the cargo ship. Galaxy Leader. This episode, followed by others targeting merchant shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, shifted maritime traffic.

The halving of the passage of commercial ships through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and Suez – between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean – resulted in a doubling of traffic at the Cape of Good Hope, according to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Portwatch platform.

 The animals did not have time to adapt…

Between March 1 and April 24, 2026, 89 commercial ships passed the Cape of Good Hope on average each day, compared to 44 over the same period of 2023.

Estimates of maritime traffic density have increased considerably since December 2023, as has the risk of collision (proportional to this density).

Worse, “ The fastest traffic, which presents the greatest accident risk, has quadrupled“, notes the document about boats sailing at more than 15 knots (27.7 km/h). All while southern Africa was already previously identified as one of the “regions at high risk of collision”, in the magazine article Science.

“The animals have not had time to adapt to maritime traffic,” explains à l’AFP Chris Johnson, head of the WWF NGO’s Whale and Dolphin Protection initiative.

“You might think that when you hear a loud noise, you move away. But this is not the case for certain species,” he explains, describing the case of blue whales in the United States.  When (they) hear a ship, they stop and dive just below the surface. »

Route alternative

For the southern right whale, the intensification of traffic comes at a time when “population recovery has slowed down due to climate change,” says Els Vermeulen.

In another development, supergroups of humpback whales now feed seasonally near the South African city of Cape Town. While it is difficult to attribute this novelty to climate change, “…it’s something we’ve been observing since 2011,” says Ken Findlay, consultant in the blue economy.  This contributes to increase the risk of collisions Â,” adds this contributor to the report.

“As they feed, they are absorbed by something else, which increases the risks,” adds Els Vermeulen.

His report proposes an alternative navigation route which would be able, according to estimates, to reduce the risk of collision by 20% to 50% depending on the species, while extending the journey by only 20 nautical miles, negligible over distances up to 10,000 nautical miles.

The world’s leading shipowner, the Swiss MSC, has for example already modified its navigation routes for these reasonsoff the coast of Sri Lanka or Greece.

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More data needed…

To move forward on this path at the tip of Africa, more data is required. At the head of the NGO Ocean Action Network, Estelle van der Merwe imagines a dedicated application or location sharing via messaging to collect them.

On-board cameras whose images are analyzed by AI should also offer interesting perspectives in several years.

“All available solutions and mitigation measures will be examined,” assured the South African Department of the Environment (DFFE) in a press release to l’AFP.

Source AFP

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