and dolphins, in comparison to other sectors of the Mediterranean. This was the first indication of the need for the establishment of a cetacean protected area in the North -Western Mediterranean, leading to the proposition of an international sanctuary there, the Pelagos Sanctuary for Mediterranean Marine Mammals. Since 2009, Tethys has carried out a series of seasonal aerial surveys funded by the Italian Ministry of the Environment and Protection of Land and Sea (MATTM), in cooperation with the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and the Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), to estimate the density and abundance, and monitoring the distribution of cetaceans and other marine mega-vertebrates in the seas around Italy. The surveyed areas included the Ligurian Sea, the Central and Southern Tyrrhenian Sea, portions of the Seas of Corsica and Sardinia, as well as the Ionian Sea and the Gulf of Taranto. Research is focussed also on collisions between whales and large ships in the Mediterranean and especially in the Pelagos Sanctuary. A study financed by the Permanent Secretariat of the Pelagos Agreement and published in September 2020 (Proposal to develop and evaluate mitigation strategies to reduce the risk of ship strikes to fin and sperm whales in the Pelagos Sanctuary) was carried out in collaboration with British Antarctic Survey, International Fund for Animal Welfare, QuietOceans, Souffleurs d'Ecume, WWF France. Tethys is also a partner in LIFE-SEADETECT, a European collaborative project aimed at reducing the issue of collisions with marine mammals (2022 – 2026). Long-term research projects Adriatic Dolphin Project Tethys has implemented long-term research programmes on Mediterranean marine mammals. The oldest of these, the Adriatic Dolphin Project (ADP), based on the island of Lošinj (Croatia), was run by Tethys from 1987 to 1999, and produced a large body of substantive ecological knowledge on the local population of common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). Concern for the survival of this dolphin population, threatened mainly by a very high level of small vessel traffic during summer, prompted the Institute to propose the establishment of a local dolphin protected area. Upon the decision by Tethys to terminate the ADP in 1999, the baton of the scientific and conservation work on the local dolphins was passed to former ADP researchers, founders and co-founders of the Blue World Institute, a Croatian NGO. Cetacean Sanctuary Research The Cetacean Sanctuary Research (CSR) project, established in 1990, is Tethys’ second long-term project. It is carried out