Changing shipping routes could help save blue whales

Blue whales off the US west coast like to feed in areas that are heavily used as shipping lanes, a practice that puts their survival at risk, researchers said last week.

Their favorite food is krill, a tiny shrimplike sea creature, and they typically return each year to the same places to find it, according to the study in the journal PLOS ONE.

This habit could be the reason why their population is not rebounding as experts had hoped, and researchers suggested that changing shipping routes could help.