Widespread exposure of marine parks, whales, and whale sharks to shipping

Context: Shipping impacts are a major environmental concern that can affect the behaviour and health of marine mammals and fishes. The potential impacts of shipping within marine parks is rarely considered during the planning process.Aims: We assessed the areal disturbance footprint of shipping around Australia, its overlap with marine parks, and known locations of megafauna, so as to identify areas of concern that warrant further investigation.Methods: Automatic Identification System (AIS) shipping data from 2018 to 2021 were interpreted through a kernel-density distribution and compared with satellite data from ∼200 individuals of megafauna amalgamated from 2003 to 2018, and the locations of marine parks.Key results: Over 18% of marine parks had shipping exposure in excess of 365 vessels per year. Around all of Australia, 39% of satellite-tag reports from whale shark and 36.7% of pygmy blue and humpback whale satellite-tag reports were in moderate shipping-exposure areas (>90 ships per year). Shipping exposure significantly increased from 2018 despite the pandemic, including within marine parks.Conclusions: These results highlight the wide-scale footprint of commercial shipping on marine ecosystems that may be increasing in intensity over time.Implications: Consideration should be made for assessing and potentially limiting shipping impacts along migration routes and within marine parks.