As summer's warm weather continues, many boaters and kayakers are getting out on the ocean, increasing the risk of accidents.
According to , around one in five deaths were caused by boating accidents. The Lifesaving Society B.C./ Yukon has been promoting safe boating practices this summer.
Marine educators and whale researchers with the Marine Education and Research Society have witnessed first hand the urgent need for increased boater education: boating accidents can also cause an increase in injuries to and as a result of marine mammals. There have been "serious human injuries and property losses due to collisions with whales, including incidents where a boater was paralyzed, kayaks were flipped and motorized vessels were disabled," according to MERS.
To combat these accidents, MERS and Jackie Hildering, a humpback researcher and co-founder of MERS, recently released a free 90-minute online course on Whale Safe Boating, which she has been working on for almost 15 years.
One of the mammals most at risk of boating accidents is the humpback whale, which has shown a steady increase in B.C.鈥檚 waters.
鈥淚t used to be a rarity to see them on most of our coast, but we鈥檝e got a second chance with them,鈥� Hildering said.
After conducting a survey filled out by 4,000 boaters, MERS researchers found that 40 per cent of the respondents incorrectly believed that humpbacks return to warm water to feed.
鈥淚f boaters think the whales are on their way to somewhere else, they are going to get themselves into trouble. ... Humpbacks come back to specific areas on our coast. They come back to where they know the tides and they鈥檙e travelling in an unpredictable pattern,鈥� said Hildering.
She also noted an increase in people boating on the island since the COVID-19 pandemic, which impacts many marine mammals, including the humpbacks.
Another serious gap that Hildering said the MERS survey revealed was that 53 per cent of the boaters could not identify the minimum distance they should keep from marine mammals in different situations.
鈥淲e realized that the coast needs one place that addresses the gap between boater knowledge and safety for recreation boaters of any kind and the marine mammals.鈥�
This is how Whale Safe Boating was created.
Another issue with marine mammal incidents is that many times it is hard to know if the mammal has died from the injury.
鈥淵ou don鈥檛 always know that they have died because they often disappear and sometimes people (don鈥檛) admit they鈥檝e had an accident even though it is the law to do so,鈥� she added.
It is also different for each species. For example, because most populations of Orca organize themselves in families, it is often noticeable when one dies because they are missing from their family. The same cannot be said for humpbacks.
In less than a week of the course being published, many boaters had already registered and completed it.
After watching the 90-minute course, people will receive a certification of completion and downloadable resources and can also return to the course at any time.
"With (hundreds of) people caring enough to register, this will become a resource that is so well known people can point to it. Others will take the course, and it will become as much as the use of the whale warning flags on our coast,鈥� Hildering added.
鈥淔or those of us lucky enough to live in B.C., whale safe boating is something that (should be) understood and an encapsulating phrase for how we choose to operate vessels.鈥�
Anyone interested in accessing the course is encouraged to visit
