The first direct observations of blue whales trying to avoid oncoming ships in the open sea reveal that the animals are simply ill adapted to maneuver quickly enough, according to a study from Stanford University. “It’s not part of their evolutionary history to have cargo ships killing them, so they haven’t developed behavioral responses to this threat,” said Jeremy Goldbogen, an assistant professor of biology at Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station, and the senior author on the study, in a press release. Collisions with ships in busy shipping lanes is a major threat to the existence of large whales, including the blue whale.