How Much is the Life of a Whale Worth?

Right Whales were the topic of a webinar, Leveraging Technology and Marine Electronics to Reduce Risk of Vessel Strikes with Protected Species and Improve Boater Safety, sponsored by IBEX (International BoatBuilders’ Exhibition and & Conference). The December 11, 2024 webinar was also sponsored by NMEA (National Marine Electronics Association) and WAVS Taskforce (Whale and Vessel Safety Taskforce).

Right Whale. Image courtesy of Encyclopedia Britannica.

The webinar focused on the current and anticipated future status of technologies that could be used to prevent recreational boats from striking right whales.

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) currently speed limits vessels 65 feet and longer in certain areas along the east coast on certain dates to 10 knots or less. This is done to reduce the frequency and severity of impacts with right whales.

NOAA withdrew a proposal today (15 January 2025) that would have lowered the 65 foot rule down to vessels 35 feet and longer. This would have included many offshore sport fishing vessels. NMMA (National Marine Manufacturers Association) strongly objected to the proposed rule. NMMA says one way to limit whale strikes is to “leverage technology and marine electronics to reduce risk of vessel strikes”.

Some of those technologies were showcased in a recent seminar.

Whale Seminar Speakers

The recent 10 December 2024 IBEX seminar heard from a series of professionals:

• Teledyne / FLIR: thermal cameras
• NACICO / Brunswick, Lowrance: monitors, connection ports, the Internet, VHS radios, AIS
• GARMIN: mapping
• Wrapping all these technologies together through sensor fusion and other methods

The Whale Protection Presentations

I found the presentations very interesting. NMMA has been trying to fight this proposed rule as hard as possible, but the electronic manufacturers see it as a huge new opportunity. While presenters did not make sales pitches, it was apparent why they were so interested in an effort “save the whales”.

Prior to the webinar we noted NOAA reported only 8 right whales were confirmed to have been struck by a boat from 1999 to 2022. That is much less than one person per year and we suspect most of those were struck by boats 35 feet and longer. Over the same period the U.S. Coast Guard Boating Accident Report Database reports over 650 people killed by a boat propeller.

With all the expensive electronic products shown in the webinar, I should have asked what they though the range of costs per vessel might be to set them up to avoid right whales. Some of the technologies they discussed are not yet released such as sharing information between vessels in the area, active fencing in GPS displays based on current conditions, automatically updating maps in your regularly used areas. For additional funds you can add things like cooling the cameras for better images, dynamic stabilization of images, higher resolution infrared cameras, accepting inputs from the whale alert app, dynamic management areas are changing every 15 days, species classification, hard to see in fog, FarSounder for underwater detection, etc.

A question from attendees was, “How do you prevent whale hunters from using these technologies?”

My Thoughts on the Presentations

I have not doubt those involved would like to prevent whales from being struck by recreational boats. However, I also recognize their respective firms see this as a major growth opportunity. While smaller near shore vessels may buy some of these tools, they will normally be purchasing lower end devices. Thirty-five foot and up offshore charter fishermen and going to buy higher end, high performance, more reliable equipment. Several of these devices already have a function on offshore boats, stepping up a few steps for preventing whale strikes, can also help their normal business.

President Biden’s Funding of Right Whales

The Inflation Reduction Act included $82 million to conserve and recover endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The Endangered Species Act

Right whales are officially listed as an endangered species, but their population and prognosis looks like they could be considered for removal from the list. However, like many endangered species, they pretty much become a business hub with many business and individuals writing grant proposals, keeping the endangered species filings up to date, manufacturing devices, improving habitat, giving eco-tours, raising awareness, fundraisers, lobbyist, photographers, videographers, social media experts, campaign managers, developing info-graphics, selling t-shirts and merchandise, publishing articles, keeping their money winner front and center in of the public and the government.

Just like the folks designing, manufacturing, and marketing devices with potential application to minimizing right whale strikes in recreational boats, I suspect folks working in the field of other endangered species hope to prevent bad things from happening to their species, but also are interesting in making a profit along the way.

Profitability combined with hundreds to thousands of individuals interested in saving certain species make it pretty much impossible for a species to be delisted once it makes it onto the endangered species list.

It is well known those not really concerned about an endangered species have used it to stop land development projects.

What is the value of a non-human life

After working with the Value of a Statistical Life to justify propeller safety proposals, it seems quite obvious we should use the value of non-human species in making these types of decisions.

For example, coal fired power plants have been calculated to cause a number of human deaths by asthma, COPD, and related breathing problems. Analysis are conducted based on the particulate ejected from the smokestacks, the distance to populated areas, the density of populations, prevailing winds, etc. But, currently no efforts are made to calculate the number of dogs and other mammals that similarly die from the emissions or place a value upon them.

Typically humans are asked how much they would be Willing to Pay (WTP) to remove a specific risk of something of the order on 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 100,000 to themselves. If the average person is willing to pay $100 to avoid a risk of 1 in 100,000, The Value of a Statistical Life (VSL) is $100 X 10,000 = $10 million. Regulatory risk are often in the zone of 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 100,000 fatalities per person exposed to the risk.

Previous attempts to place values on non-humans quickly focused on how much value pet owners were willing to place on their dog. Early work showed values in the range of $10,000 were often the answer. Things became more nebulous when it came to the value of stray dogs, dogs in the pound, etc.

Some Problems With Trying to Put a Value on a Non-Human Life

Another problem is welfare of non-human lives. For example do we just want to save animals but let them live their lives in terrible conditions with little food and no pleasures in their lives. Investigations in this area turned to food as a cost. How much food were animals willing to give up to move to areas with better, healthier living conditions. Free range eggs were seen as a way to evaluate how much some people were willing to pay for chickens to have what they thought to be better living conditions.

Some have suggested using the purchase value of animals in auctions as the value of farm animals, horses, etc.

Others have suggested using the value of their body (tusks, hooves, hide, skin, teeth, taxidermy, etc)

Some animals, including whales, are the source of eco-tourism dollars? Does the number of whales at a site divided by the number of dollars raised in eco-tourism equal the value of a whale?

Geography is an issue with those living in or near the habitat of the endangered species typically placing a greater value upon the life of an individual of that species.

Delta Smelt

There are huge populations of certain types of animals, even those on the endangered species list. Is it really worth much to save one small fish when there are tens of thousands of similar small fish?

For example, the current issue surrounding California dams being removed to protect endangered Delta smelt fish in the wake of the major ongoing wildfires near Los Angeles.

Delta smelt: National Geographic image

Some surveys asks how much people would be willing to pay annually for 20 years to improve the population of a certain species such as salmon. But that data does not apply to individual fish.

Pain

Do animals feel pain, which animals feel pain? Do the go through tremendous pain when they are mortally wounded and take a while to die? Does that add value to their statistical value of life?

Several of the issues above are in part why we do not currently have a definitive number for the value of life of animals OR plants OR insects.

Attempts at Placing a Value on the Life of a Whale

We have seen a few attempts at this and suggest one ourselves.

1. The 2005 Official Recovery Plan for the North Atlantic Right Whale. Prepared for The Office of Protected Resources. National Marine Fisheries Service. NOAA. This is the recovery plan required by the Endangered Species Act.

Plans are made 5 years at a time. This 5 year plan had an estimated total cost of $44.305 million. The report when on to state the estimated total recovery cost could not be estimated because it would likely take decades. At this time the North Atlantic Right Whale population was estimated to be 300 whales.

$44.305 million / 300 whales = about $148,000 per whale for the then current 5 year plan. If spending at that level went on for decades, they could well be valued at a few million dollars per whale.

2. What’s a Whale Worth. Valuing Whales for National Whale Day. Final Report. Economists at Large. Note all dollars in this report based on 2008 data are Australian dollars.

Australia has Southern Right Whales and Humpback Whales. They placed a value on whales dividing totals whale watching ticket sales, and again based on total whale watching tourism expenditures. They used the number of tourists and the umber of whales at 3 specific whale tourism sites. The annual value of each whale was used to determine the present value of its life over its lifetime of earnings.

Broome in Western Australia has a lot of humpback whales and not very many tourists. Warrnambool in Victoria has few Southern Right whales and lots of tourists.

Over 1.6 million people went whale watching in Australia in 2008. They spent $48 million on tickets and a total other expenditures of $264.3 million or a total whale watching an related expenditures of $312.3 million. Whale watching accounted for about 4 percent of Australian GDP during the years studied.

The authors used a conservative 60 year life expectancy for humpback whales and a conservative 40 year life expectancy for Southern Right Whales.
Using the total expenditures (tickets plus other expenditures) on whale tourism in each zone, they placed a value:

• $1,259,000 on each Southern Right whales at Warrnambool in Victoria Australia
• $32,000 on each Humpback Whale at Broome in Western Australia

3. A Strategy to Protect Whales Can Limit Greenhouse Gases and Global Warming. Nature’s Solution to Climate Change. F&D Finance & Development Magazine. International Monetary Fund. December 2019.

The theory is that whales eat plankton. Plankton capture an estimated total of 40 percent of all CO2 produced. Whales devour and store huge amounts of carbon monoxide while their excretment is fed upon by plankton which also produce about about 50 percent of the oxygen in our atmosphere. When whales do die, they sink to the bottom of the ocean, are fed upon by other ocean life, and give up C02 very slowly

Per the article the average value of a great whale based on the value of CO2 sequestered over a lifetime, fishery enhancement, and ecotourism is greater than $2 million.

The article says if whale populations returned to pre-whaling levels, it would be worth $13 per year per person on earth to subsidize them.

The article opened noting one whale is worth thousands of trees.

4. President Biden announced $82 in funding boost to save North American Right Whales from Extinction. KMYU (Salt Lake). 19 September 2023.

$82 million spread over 350 right whale is an expense of about $234,000 per right whale. While this is not a value of the life of a whale, one could say that if it is worth an additional $234,000 per right whale to try to save the species, right whales are probably worth something in excess of $250,000.

5. SI Appendix. Conservation Triage or Injurious Neglect in Endangered Species Recovery. PNAS. Gerber. March 29, 2016.

This paper reports on the funding requested by the endangered species per their recovery plan vs. the actual funding received.

It stated Right Whales planned $9,658,490 for 2010 but only received about 37 percent of it.

Just looking at one year’s planned expenses $9,658,490 / 350 whales = about $27,600 per whale per year.

6. National Values for Regional Aquatic Species at Risk in Canada. Endangered Species Research. March 2009.

Some Right Whales spend time in Canadian waters.

A survey measured the willingness of Canadians to pay $20 per year for 20 years to increase the Right Whale population by 50% with a 100 percent probability of success or to buy into a one dollar per year program for another fish or to do nothing. The funds would be collected with their taxes. Right Whales were among the most popular choices to fund.

7. North Atlantic Right Whale Vessel Speed Rule Assessment. June 2020. NOAAA Fisheries, Office of Protected Resources. The proposed rule cost an estimated $28.3 to $39.4 million with 58 to 78 percent of that born by the containership industry.

$28.3 Million / 350 whales = about $81,000 per right whale to $39.4 million / 350 = about $112,600 per whale.

8. Draft Regulatory Impact Review and Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis. Amendments to the North Atlantic Right Whale Vessel Strike Reduction Rule. Office of Protected Resources. National Marine Fisheries Service. NOAA. July 2022.

Changes include expansion of the existing 10 knot speed restrictions in Seasonal Speed Zones which now include most vessels greater than or equal to 35 feet up to vessels less than or equal to 65 feet.

A series of 5 proposals are made ranging from Proposal 1 = no change, to Proposal 5 being the Preferred Alternative. Proposal 5 has cost of $46,216,122. They anticipate 35 percent of that would be born by the shipping industry being slowed down in more zones for longer times than they currently are.

$46,216,122 / 350 whales = about $132,000 per whale

The report says the maximum number of fatalities North Atlantic Right Whales can sustain in a year over and above natural fatalities is .7 whales. Over time the species cannot recover if average losses exceed .7 whales per year.

Per the report, vessels < 65 feet accounted to 5 of the 12 undocumented lethal strike events in U.S. Waters since 2008.

8B. Literature Study in # 8 Above

Among the first reports of this nature to do so, they include a brief literature study of efforts to place non-use values on marine mammals. (see Pages 18-19 of their report).

Only one of the studies they cited specifically looked at Right Whales, the Wallmo and Lew study. Wallmo and Lew focused on Public Willingness to Pay (WTP) for recovering Endangered Species or just getting them recovered enough to get them off the Endangered Species list.

Wallmo and Lew found a mean WTP per household for ten years of $71.62 go recover North American Right Whale populations and a mean WTP of $38.79 a year for 10 years per household to get them off the endangered species list and moving them to the threatened list. Note, both groups were told it could take 50 years to see the fruits of their investment. The survey was sent to a random sample of 11,971 U.S. households. All values were in 2010 U.S. dollars. They were told the annual charge would be added to their taxes.

10 years X $ 71.62 x 116.7 million households in 2010 = about 83.6 billion / 350 whales = $238.8 million per whale

In real life, many households could pay none to very little toward the project. Some corporations, especially those in related industries might participate.

9. NOAA Protected Species Economics research estimated Americans were Willing to Pay (WTP) $4.3 billion annually for recovery of the North Atlantic Right Whale.

$4.3 billion / 350 = about $12.3 million per right whale per year.

In 2008 NOAA estimated the whale watching industry had an economic value of about 2.3 billion.

We suggest the NOAA study is an overestimation as many would not be able to pay.

9. U.S. Income from whale watching expenditures. Reference: “Whale Watching Worldwide” A special report from the International Fund for Animal Welfare. 2009.

Page 213 of the report begins the coverage of U.S. Whale Watching income. It cites 2008 direct expenditures of $508,672,475 and indirect expenditures of $447,942,829 for a total of $956, 615,304 for all U.S. Whale watching income from watching all kinds of whales. Alaska and Hawaii accounted for over 60 percent of the overall total income.

Washington, Oregon, and California accounted for another 18 percent of the total. That leaves about 22 percent possibly related to right whale tourism.

22% of $1 billion = $220 million in 2008 dollars as a very rough estimate.

If you split $220 million / 350 Northern Right Whales = a maximum of about $570,000 per Northern Right Whale, but other kinds of whales and maybe some dolphins are still within this total.

10. PropellerSafety thought – The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) currently (December 2024) places the Value of a Statistical Life of a human at $13.2 million. We suspect that most of us if placed in the situation of seeing a Right Whale about to eat or otherwise definitely kill a human and we had some tool that could quickly kill the whale we would use it. That means the Statistical Value of Life of a Right Whale is less than $13.2 million.

If you took the same scenario and 2 or 3 or 10 or 20 Right Whales were together about to kill one human being and we had a tool that would quickly kill all of them, at some point of increasing numbers of Right Whales at least some of us would begin to think about sacrificing the human. That experiment could be provided as a survey questionnaire to supply another estimate of the value of the statistical life of a right whale.

Three references shedding some light on the challenge of deciding how many animals does it take to equal a human life are:

A. Humans First: Why People Value Animals Less Than Humans. Caviola, Schubert, Kahane Faber. Cognition (an Elsevier Journal). Vol. 225 (2022).

B. How People Vaue the Lives of Animals Relative to Humans. Summary of the article above by Zach Wulderk. Faunalitics.

C. Ethical Delima: Whose Life is More Valuable? Rebecca Walker. A November 2022 TED talk video.

Summary of Values Placed on a Right Whale

• $148,000 per right whale for the 2005 5 year plan. Spending at that level could go on for decades
• $1,259,000 AU on each Southern Right whales at Warrnambool in Victoria Australia from right whale tourism
• > $2 million per the greenhouse gas report
• in excess of $250,000 per right whale per Pres. Biden $82 million award in 2023
• $27,600 to be spent per Right Whale per year per Gerber report
• $20 Canadian per year per family for 20 years to increase right whale population by 50 percent was a popular plan in a Canadian survey
• $81,000 to 121,600 per right whale per year was the cost of the current vessel speed rule was first proposed in 2020
• $239 million per Wallmo and Lew as quoted by the NOAA Regulatory Impact Review
• $132,000 per right whale per year is the cost of the currently proposed vessel speed rule preferred option 5 in 2022
• maximum of $570,000 per year for North American Right Whale tourism expenses per the International whale tour study
• < $13.2 million per right whale per PropellerSafety

Only three of the estimates above place a discrete value on the life of a right whale: #2 the Australian studies, #3 the greenhouse gas report, and #8 the Wallmo and Lew estimate cited in NOAA’s regulatory review. regulations.

With the Australian and Greenhouse gas estimates reaching somewhat similar estimates and the Wallmo and Lew estimated not able to be supported by all individuals in the U.S., we will go with an estimate of $2 million for the life of a North American Right Whale.

Compare Cost of Whale Deaths vs. Cost of People Deaths

NOAA reported only 8 right whales were confirmed to have been struck by a boat from 1999 to 2022. That is about 8/22 = about 1/3 of a whale per year. Note, those are just struck, they did not all die.

Eight Right Whales struck X $2 million/whale = $16 million dollars for the struck whales (note not all struck whales died)

A search of the USCG BARD database shows over 650 people killed over the same period.

650 people X $13.2 million / person = $8.6 billion.

$8.6 billion / $216 million = 537

Human fatalities are worth over 500 times that of a whale strikes over the same time that may not even result in a whale fatality.,

Compare Costs of Prevention Programs

The Proposed Whale Speed Reduction Rule would currently cost about $132,000 per Right Whale per year or about $46 million per year. This is in addition to all the currently existing programs trying to protect Right Whales.

We currently know of NO programs in operation specifically to reduce the number of boat propeller accidents. Law enforcement does conduct ongoing law enforcement activities on the water, just like the U.S. Coast Guard does, but those expenses are not directly tied to reducing boat propeller strikes.

$46 million a year to prevent 1/3 of a whale strike a year but nothing to prevent about 20 to 45 human fatalities a year.

That would be a pretty hard sell to folks that lost family members to boat propellers.

Are Right Whales Worth More Than Delta Smelt? How Many Humans Are They Worth?

First are we talking about one Right Whale vs one tiny Delta Smelt?

Or are we talking about every single member of the species together?

These are just a few of the many questions that arise.

Much remains to be done in this field.

This is likely just the first major encounter in the recreational boating encounters Endangered Species discussion.