On my whirlwind Save Nature Now tour of Australia, I had the pleasure of partaking in the Living Ocean marine research aboard the MV Salt in the Tasman Sea.
Our mission was to record the number of migrating humpback and minke whales, along with a number of other biological measures that are included in non-lethal whale research.
Minke’s and humpback’s belong to the filter-feeding whale group that consume trillions of krill or miniature lobsters enmeshed in the polar phytoplankton.
Filter-feeding whales stir up as much water as all the waves in the sea. They are crucial to the health and well-being of our oceans. Their flocculent fecal plumes — or poop — is rich in iron and nitrogen, which fertilizes the phytoplankton.
Did you know that three out of every four breaths of air, irrespective of where you live on the globe, comes from the ocean’s phytoplankton?
Did you also know that we are missing 40 percent of Earth’s phytoplankton due to the climate crisis disrupting cold currents from carrying nutrient-rich water to fertilize the phytoplankton?
The filter-feeding whales are helping us fight the climate crisis by helping to grow more phytoplankton, which is removing heat-trapping carbon dioxide that’s being added daily from burning in excess of 96 million metric tons of toxic fossil fuels.
The toothed whales — which include all dolphins — keep their populations of prey fit but culling the old, weak and sick. Toothed whales prevent diseases from becoming epidemics.
It’s time once and for all to end slaughtering sentient whales and dolphins- including Japan’s torturous hunt in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, the bloody and inhumane drive hunts in Taiji, Japan and the awful, barbaric bloodlust occurring in the Danish Faroe Islands.
The oceans are terribly ill. The whales and dolphins are doctors of the sea. We need every one of them alive because if the oceans die- we die. Amnesty for all whales and dolphins now!
Please support Living Ocean, Sea Shepherd Australia and The Ochre Project because they are protecting the doctors of the sea — whales and dolphins.
Earth Dr. Reese Halter’s latest book is “Shepherding the Sea: The Race to Save our Oceans.”