Ship strikes are the leading human-induced threat to endangered sperm and fin whales in the Mediterranean. A special feature by Mongabay examines the scale of the threat, as well as the solutions being explored to address it.
The feature highlights SAvE Whales, a project aimed at developing an innovative acoustic early-warning system for ships in the Strait of Kythira. As part of the Hellenic Trench, the strait is an important habitat for sperm whales and experiences very high levels of shipping traffic, while rerouting vessels is not an easily viable option in the area.
The project forms part of Greece’s commitment made at the 2024 Our Ocean Conference and is being implemented through cooperation between the Ministry of Environment and Energy, the Green Fund, the Natural Environment and Climate Change Agency (NECCA), OceanCare and The Green Tank, with scientific support from the Pelagos Cetacean Research Institute and the Institute of Applied and Computational Mathematics at the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH). The project is co-financed by the Green Fund and OceanCare.
The system uses hydrophones to detect sperm whales through their characteristic clicks and alert passing vessels to their presence in real time. Once completed, it is expected to be handed over to NECCA at the end of 2028 and become an official tool of the Greek state for preventing collisions between sperm whales and passing vessels.
Ioli Christopoulou, Policy Director at The Green Tank, explains in the feature why a targeted solution can be particularly valuable in areas where other measures, such as rerouting shipping traffic, are difficult to implement: “One of the beauties of this project is that it’s really specific to the problem. It’s a bottleneck you can really solve.”
The feature also examines other measures being tested in different parts of the Mediterranean to reduce ship strikes involving cetaceans, including speed restrictions, changes to shipping routes and early-warning technologies.
Read the full article by Mongabay to learn more about the threat of ship strikes and the solutions being explored to protect the Mediterranean’s great whales.
