June 29, 2026 – -Even though whales take up a lot of space, they can be surprisingly stealthy in the water. Regina Asmutis-Silvia, executive director of Whale and Dolphin Conservation North America, knows firsthand how difficult it can be to spot one and avoid a collision.
When she’s steering a research boat, Asmutis-Silvia looks for specific types of ripples at the surface or spouts of water from a blowhole to signal that a whale is nearby. But even so, the animals can be unpredictable.
“They’re not out here paying attention to you,” she says. “Whales that are looking for food and eating are very focused. It’s probably the whale version of hangry!”
Recently, Asmutis-Silvia was slowly moving a boat she operates as part of a research project with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, having noticed signs of whales in the area. Suddenly, a North Atlantic right whale popped up just 30 feet ahead, off the boat’s bow. “That’s not atypical whale behavior for right whales,” Asmutis-Silvia says. “These animals do what they want.”
She had time to turn her vessel away from the mammal, because of her low speed, but many other cases don’t end so harmlessly. Whale strikes have been on the rise in areas along the East Coast, likely due to the growth of global shipping in the past few decades. Worldwide, vessels fatally hit an estimated 20,000 whales each year. Recent examples of dead whales washing ashore on New York and Delaware beaches have brought the toll of vessel strikes into the public eye.