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Dear friends and colleagues,
Join us on a
journey to the Kythira Strait, Greece, where our efforts to
safeguard one of the Mediterranean’s most endangered
populations—the sperm whales—are underway. Our new short video
shows how science, technology, and collaboration are trying to
improve and make safer the life of these iconic marine giants:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwOh6zStnxY
(~4 min)
The history of SAvE
Whales in brief:
A population of sperm whales was discovered in the Hellenic Trench by the Pelagos Cetacean Research Institute in 1998. By 2004 ship-strikes were soon identified by Pelagos Institute as the main threat for the survival of this endangered population. Modelization of sperm whale presence and marine traffic in collaboration with IFAW showed that small changes in shipping routes can reduce the collision risk and almost eliminate the problem. However, where routes can’t be changed, the SAvE Whales system offers real-time solutions to alert mariners to impose slow down measures to prevent collisions. SAvE Whales, which stands for “System for the Avoidance of ship-strikes with Endangered Whales”, was first developed in a pilot project between 2019 and 2021 by Pelagos and FORTH, fully funded by OceanCare. It offers a pioneering technology, serving as a complementary response measure to the threat of vessel strikes. A Memorandum of Understanding, singed in June 2024, by the Greek Ministry of Environment and Energy, the Natural Environment and Climate Change Agency, OceanCare and Τhe Green Tank provides the management and funding framework for the scaling up and the full implementation of the system in the Kythira Strait by 2028. The preparation fieldwork of the up-scaling to a full year operating SAvE Whales 2.0 started in 2024 with funding by OceanCare and the support of research boat rental by the University of Manchester-PlasticHeal project.
You are free to share the video in your social media, if you wish.If you like this video, you may also watch our three previous short videos on Cuvier's beaked whales, sperm whales and striped dolphins from the area of the Hellenic Trench IMMA and the Gulf of Corinth IMMA. The videos are available at the following Youtube links:
A sperm whale family in action, Hellenic Trench, Greece (~3 min) https://youtu.be/nUK_6bkvHM8Unique
Wonders of the dolphins in the Gulf of Corinth (~4 min) https://youtu.be/1lUhjckyOYg
Hellenic Trench, Surveys 2019-2020 (~3 min) https://youtu.be/K3bkhu4dR3Q
Best wishes,
Alexandros
-- __________________________________________________________ Dr. Alexandros Frantzis Scientific director Pelagos Cetacean Research Institute Terpsichoris 21 16671 Vouliagmeni, GREECE Tel.: +30-210-8960108 e-mail: afrantzis@otenet.gr website: http://www.pelagosinstitute.gr https://www.instagram.com/pelagos.institute/ https://www.youtube.com/@pelagos.institute __________________________________________________________