Can we stop ships from killing the Mediterranean’s last great whales?

Collisions with ships are a leading anthropogenic killer of the Mediterranean’s two endangered large-bodied cetacean species, sperm and fin whales.

In 2025, thousands of vessels traveled through the Mediterranean’s key whale habitats at speeds above 15 knots (28 km/h), the threshold at which vessel strikes are almost always fatal, according to an analysis by Magma Magazine and Mongabay.

Using vessel and whale telemetry data, Mongabay created a visualization that illustrates how dense maritime traffic poses a continuous threat to whales in the Mediterranean.

Nascent solutions include vessel speed restrictions, rerouting ship traffic to avoid whale habitats, and systems that alert ships to the presence of whales.