The State of Cetaceans 2024

2023 will perhaps be best remembered by ORCA as the year we went truly global. There was always an international dimension to our work, with surveys being undertaken in many different parts of the world. But our data is now increasingly characterised by ongoing and repeated studies of marine areas that we had never previously spent time in, and which have never been surveyed on a regular basis.

Given the extent of our knowledge about the land based environment, it’s extraordinary that only a quarter of our marine environment has even been mapped, let alone explored or studied. And while mapping fills out our knowledge, it’s a passive, technical exercise. It doesn’t provide the answers we need to understand habitat hotspots, population or abundance numbers, migrations and new or emerging threats.

This accessibility is the reason why marine conservation has lagged behind land based work. But it is catching up, and some of these previously out-of-reach zones have become more accessible. Somewhat inevitably, this is partly to do with technological advances that actually pose threats to marine habitats, such as deep-sea mining for mineral extraction, or acoustic pollution.

The map of our global survey effort, with ever-increasing threads of activity around the world, is testament to our extraordinary volunteer Marine Mammal Surveyors and Ocean Conservationists, who are fulfilling the true aspiration of the citizen science concept by expanding our knowledge of the marine environment. Each line on the map is a journey facilitated by our equally loyal partners, be they cruise ships, ferries or commercial shipping. This pairing of citizen scientists with ships traversing our understudied seas means that every year we unravel a little more of the mystery of our marine environment, and build the evidence that will help safeguard it for the future.