National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Be Whale Wise Campaign

Peak Systems Helps Boaters Be Whale Wise

NOAA Fisheries hired Peak Systems to create a website to serve as the heart of a promotional campaign alerting boaters and kayakers to the regulations governing their interaction with whales. The site provides the information that boaters need to avoid disturbing whales, particularly the Pacific Northwest’s beloved resident orca population.

Recent regulation and enforcement changes have strengthened the protections for whales in US waters. The goal of the effort is to prevent boaters and kayakers from disturbing whales, primarily by mandating a minimum distance between people and whales of at least 100 yards and a “slow zone” for vessels within a 400-yard radius of whales. Peak Systems was hired to help inform boaters and kayakers of these boundaries, thereby protecting whales and preventing boaters from being fined.

Services Provided

Web Design, Flash, PPC Management, Application Development, Hosting

Solution

Peak designed an informative website, Be Whale Wise, to help boaters and kayakers understand the current federal regulations protecting marine mammals. In addition, Peak designed a Google Maps-based Violation Report Tool that allows users to report boaters and kayakers that stray too close to protected marine life. Users can provide numerous details including the location, time and nature of the incident. This information serves as a deterrent and can assist the authorities in prosecuting vessel operators who harass Orcas, a federally protected species in the US and Canada.

Peak engaged in other activities to increase community involvement and inexpensively spread the word about the campaign. Peak created a banner generator tool for the site. There are snippets of HTML on the site that when pasted into a website’s source code will place a banner on the website with a link to the Be Whale Wise homepage. Peak sent stickers emblazoned with the website address to virtually every major sailing club, yacht club and marina in the region along with a letter asking for their support in this effort. Peak also created and managed a highly efficient Pay Per Click advertising campaign that drove over 4,100 users to the Be Whale Wise website at an average cost of only $.55 each.

Results

For the Be Whale Wise site, conversions are defined as users visiting the “Spread the Word” page. The Be Whale Wise website has a conversion rate of over 70% after one year. 

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