Whale with Broken Back Struggles to Swim in Heartbreaking Footage.

A fin whale with a severely deformed spine, likely caused by a vessel strike, was recently filmed struggling to swim off the Mediterranean coast of Spain. The injury will probably cause the whale to slowly starve. Baleen whales rely on their enormous tails to propel themselves through the water, but the injured whale is unable to do this, which means it is probably starving. Around 20,000 whales are estimated to be killed by vessel strikes every year, due to a more than 300% increase in global shipping traffic since 1992.