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MrPlow writes:

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[Greek] government promises action on collisions to avoid slaughter on busy shipping routes

In an office up a steep hill in a seaside suburb of Athens, a tiny blue light flickers from a computer terminal. Dr Alexandros Frantzis, Greece's foremost oceanographer, points it out. The light, he says, tracks marine traffic "in real time".

It is key to saving one of the world's most endangered whale populations. "It logs the position, course and speed of a vessel entering Greek waters," he says. "And that is vital to mapping shipping densities in areas populated by sperm whales."

[...] Like marine mammals in most places, the whales face a multitude of threats, from entanglement in fishing nets to ingestion of plastic waste.

In Greece there is the added risk of noise pollution from Nato warships conducting underwater sonar drills – exercises blamed for disorienting whales reliant on their own form of sonar to navigate and hunt. Seismic surveys, following the discovery of underwater hydrocarbons, also pose a threat.

But Frantzis says the biggest danger to local cetaceans is the chance of colliding with a ship. He singles out tankers, cargo vessels and cruise liners [in] the waters off the western Peloponnese, an area where whales swarm but one of the busiest routes for shipping.

Last month a nine-metre whale washed up on a beach in Santorini, the latest in a series of strandings. Frantzis now has a large white bone – one of its teeth – on his desk. For sperm whales, death by collision is by far the most painful, he claims, with propellers often leaving the animals torn and gashed.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/27/shipping-routes-move-save-whales-greek-seas-dying-agony

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