How Whales Can Save The Planet

Until I saw a Sustainablehuman.org video by George Monbiot, I could never have imagined what effect whales have on our endangered climate. And when you think that we have hunted these beautiful mammals well on the way to extinction, it is ironic that in so doing we have put our planet in danger of disappearing up its own backside.

Whales are believed to have once numbered some 350,000. The present-day population is estimated to be between 10,000 and 25,000 whales. This means that there is still hope for us to help the species to recover. The question is, how on Earth can whales save the planet? To answer that question we need to understand how the aquatic food chain works and what role whales play in it.

As we all know, whales eat krill as well as fish. What is Krill? Krill are small crustaceans not unlike shrimps or prawns. So when the numbers of whales declined due to large-scale hunting, it was logically expected that since the main predator of those sub-species was fast disappearing, the numbers of krill and fish would increase as a result. However, aquatic studies revealed that the opposite was true. Less whales, less krill and fish. How so? Read on.

In what can only be described as an aquatic shuttle, whales submerge into the depths of the oceans where they eat and return to what is called the photic zone to create faecal plumes, or poop tsunamis of mammalian faeces which act as a fertiliser in the photic zone, which plant plankton, fish and krill need to survive. In effect, whales farm their own food. And if whales go, the food goes with them, along with tons of plankton. What has that got to do with the planet?

Plant plankton is very good at absorbing carbon dioxide from the water and the atmosphere. Then it gets caught in what are called trophic cascades which take all of the carbon-soaked plankton to the bottom of the ocean, out of circulation, where it lies for thousands of years.

In effect, whales are an essential part of a biological filtering system which removes very harmful carbon dioxide from the air.

No whales-no whale poop-no fertilising plant plankton-no plankton removal of carbon. The result is climate change and global warming, the results of which we are already seeing, all around the world.

So it is clearly in our own best interest to bring about the banning of killing whales. We need them a lot more than they need us. Now if does not merit a pause for thought, I do not know what does.