Sea routes for migrating whales are becoming ever tighter as plastic pollution, fishing and sea traffic in crowded shipping lanes like Belgium's stretch of the English Channel pose an ever-greater threat to the great mammals of the oceans.
So says the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) in a new report seeking political protection for so-called "Blue Corridoors", as reported by Belga News Agency on Thursday.
While pollution has grabbed most of the headlines over marine environment-friendly campaigning over recent years, the WWF estimates that some 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises die each year snagged in the fishing gear of catch-craft from the Arctic to the Antarctic.
Six out of thirteen great whale species are now deemed endangered or vulnerable, the WWF said in pushing for international rules to be tightened ahead of World Whale Day on 20 February.
