MSC Poesia Adds Whale Observer to Reduce Alaska Strike Risks
The deployment brings Poesia into Southeast Alaska waters where nine vessel-strike incidents were reported near Juneau from 2020 through 2024, six involving calves.
MSC Cruises will carry a marine mammal observer aboard MSC Poesia for five weeks this summer as the ship operates the company’s first Alaska season from Seattle. The work, conducted with the U.K.-based whale and dolphin nonprofit ORCA, will place observer Maria Snell on the bridge with binoculars and a video camera to watch for humpbacks, notify the crew and record whale behavior near the ship.
The deployment puts Poesia in Southeast Alaska waters where nine vessel-strike incidents were reported in the Juneau area from 2020 through 2024, including six involving calves.
ORCA observer to work from the bridge
ORCA chief operating officer Steve Jones joined Poesia’s maiden Southeast Alaska voyage in May to begin the collaboration, which is intended to study how large ships can reduce the risk of striking whales.
“We still don’t understand some really fundamental questions,” Jones said. “What action should the ship take? What species-specific guidance might there be?”
Snell is expected to encounter humpbacks during their summer feeding period, when whales are taking in herring and krill while raising young. In addition to the bridge watch, she plans to train crew members on whale-avoidance practices and speak with passengers about conservation.
“Now we enter [the] Alaska market for the first time, and we want to make sure that we do that in a proper and respectful way,” said Jon Olav Stedje, MSC Cruises’ manager of sustainability and community engagement.
Lynn Torrent, president of MSC Cruises North America, also tied the ORCA work to the line’s Alaska launch, saying MSC would have “a dedicated Marine Mammal Observer onboard during peak whale season.” She said the itinerary and the natural environment are central to how MSC is approaching the destination.
Alaska rules and Juneau strike history
NOAA’s Alaska humpback whale approach rules require vessels to maintain at least 100 yards of separation, avoid placing a vessel in a whale’s path or disturbing normal behavior, and operate slowly and safely near humpbacks. The International Whaling Commission has said collisions involving large vessels often are not seen or reported.
Jones said ship crews should slow as soon as a whale is detected. “The classic baseline is always: if you see a blow, go slow,” he said. With enough warning, he said, crews may have additional options: “You can, if you’re aware far enough in advance and going at a slow enough speed with the right sort of propulsion, maneuver around a whale.”
A Glacier Bay National Park study from the summers of 2016 and 2017 used a marine mammal observer aboard 67 large cruise ships, then combined humpback surfacing observations with simulated ship responses. The scientists found that large ships could actively avoid strikes, estimating that crews typically had three opportunities to see a whale surface as a vessel approached.
Heidi Pearson, a professor of marine biology at the University of Alaska Southeast who studies humpback whale health in Juneau, said she supports putting observers on ships. “I think if more vessels had dedicated marine mammal observers aboard, potentially they could help to avoid more whale strikes,” Pearson said. She also cautioned that rigorous behavioral data on how whales respond to a vessel would be difficult to collect without a baseline, control or dedicated behavioral studies.
ORCA has not published peer-reviewed scientific papers. Jones said the organization makes its citizen-science data freely available and has submitted data to Happywhale, which identifies individual whales from crowd-sourced photos, and to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Seattle season runs through September
Poesia sailed from Seattle on May 11 for its first Alaska voyage after an 18-night Miami-to-Seattle repositioning via the Panama Canal. The ship is scheduled for Monday departures on seven-night cruises through September, with calls at Ketchikan, Icy Strait Point and Juneau in Alaska and Victoria, British Columbia.
After the 2026 program, MSC Poesia is scheduled to return to Alaska for another summer season beginning in April 2027.
