Stopping marine roadkill

When Vanessa Pirotta is surveying whales in the frigid water off Antarctica, the traffic-packed roads back home are far from her mind. “You see absolutely nothing out there at times,” says Pirotta, a marine biologist at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. “So when a ship eventually comes along, I think about how jarring it must be for a whale or shark.” Marine roads are invisible, but they are busier than ever. Each year, ships use these paths to ferry more than 10 billion tonnes of goods from one country to the next. Global trade relies heavily on seaborne transport, but large whales and sharks are paying the price.