There is good and bad news about California blue whales. The good news is that the number of whales along the west coast of North America has rebounded to close to levels prior to whaling.  The bad news is that blue whales are in ever greater danger of dying from run down by ships.  Blue whales can be difficult to see from the bridge of a ship and, for reasons not well understood, the blue whales do not necessarily move to avoid the oncoming ships. A recent, pioneering study may suggest a reason why. The whales may have evolved to be simply too large.  As reported by Takepart:

The short answer, according to a first-of-its-kind study, is that they have never learned to steer clear of big objects like ships. The largest animal that’s ever lived, at more than 100 feet long and 320,000 pounds, the blue whale for 30 million years never had to move out of anything’s way.

“The main point for me is that these are animals supremely adapted to surviving in a challenging marine environment, and fast, large ships is something they have not had to deal with or are evolved to deal with,” said Megan McKenna,  a coauthor of the study and a researcher with the National Park Service in Fort Collins, Colorado. “There is little opportunity for an animal to learn about this threat, since a ship strike will often be fatal.”

The scientists involved in the study suggest that greater efforts need be made to reroute ships to avoid the seasons and places where blue whales travel the most.