Whales: A Natural Solution To Our Climate Change Crisis

It’s no secret that I think that cetaceans are some of the most spectacular creatures to grace our planet. But did you know that whales play a colossal role in combating climate change, keeping our planet, you (& other inhabitants), and the atmosphere healthy?

Now when I proclaim how I love whales and count the ways, I’ve got a bunch more reasons to list. They’re huge contributors (literally) to keeping greenhouse-creating carbon dioxide amounts in the atmosphere in check. Not to mention their healthy presence helps keep ecosystems balanced and marine biodiversity ensured. See? Whales are spectacular!

Protect the Whales = Protect the Planet

The International Monetary Fund published a report in 2019 where they acknowledged the urgency to reduce carbon levels in the atmosphere in order to combat climate change, but they cite complications in finding an efficient and economic way to do so. Until they acknowledged the most natural, no-tech, and potentially most effective solution.

Enter Whales.

Whales, just by being whales living their whale lives doing their whale things, sequester an exuberant amount of carbon themselves. And they aid in the sequestering of carbon through their relationship with phytoplankton. So the IMF is keen on figuring out how to protect whale species in the hopes that their numbers can climb back from today’s 1.3 million to 5 million, which is where they were before whaling days.

Whale’s Size and Longevity: Two Keys to Carbon Sequestration

Whales are not only the largest animals on earth, but they’re also the longest-living animals on our planet. For example, the bowhead whale weighs close to 100 tons and its lifespan is more than 200 years. This is HUGE when it comes to carbon sequestration.

Whales accumulate carbon in their very large bodies throughout their very long lives. When they die their carcasses sink to the bottom of the sea, taking vast amounts of carbon with them where it will all stay stored for centuries. Their remains also create deep sea ecosystems for up to 200 different species, revving up biodiversity and food webs.

“Each great whale sequesters 33 tons of CO2 on average, taking that carbon out of the atmosphere for centuries. A tree, meanwhile, absorbs only up to 48 pounds of CO2 a year.”

Ralph Chami, et al., “Nature’s Solution to Climate Change”

Whale populations were decimated during whaling years. Some species are since extinct, others are still critically endangered, and some are making a comeback. Also, all of those millions of whales that were pulled out of the sea ended up adding to our carbon footprint because (1) they were pulled out of the ocean, and (2) their blubber was burned for fuel.

 If we’re successful in restoring the populations of even just eight baleen whale species, we’d recover the carbon-storing capacity of a 110,000-hectare forest. 

Whales: The Farmers and Fertilizers of the Sea

Whales aren’t just martyrs that go about saving planets with their deaths. They contribute a sh*t-ton of carbon sequestration during their very long lives, too. 

During the summer months when whales are focused on gorging and replenishing their fat stores, they dive down to the depths that their food sources inhabit. For example, sperm whales will dive down over 2000 meters to find squid and blue whales will dive 150 meters to consume krill. 

Whales may have varying diets and diving depths, but one thing they all have in common is they have to come up to the surface to breathe. This constant diving up and down creates turbulence, which helps spread and circulate nutrients throughout the water column. This brings food sources to many diverse species of marine life and keeps food webs healthy, including fish stocks.

Thank Whale Poop for the Oxygen We Breathe

Another thing that whales have in common is that they can’t poop under pressure. Literally. As in, they have to come up and poop at the ocean’s surface. Which, as it turns out, is great news for us oxygen breathers! Stay with me.

Phytoplankton are little microscopic single-celled marine algae that live in the upper level of the ocean where sunlight can reach them. Like plants, they need sunlight to live. But they also need other food sources, like iron, nitrogen, and phosphorus, which can be found in whales’ diets. 

And therefore in their poop. One adult sperm whale can contribute 50 metric tons worth of iron to the ocean’s ecosystem each year.

So whales feed on fish, squid, and shellfish and then they feed phytoplankton with their refuse. In turn, phytoplankton feed most–if not all–life in the sea as they’re the base of the ocean’s food webs.

Not only are phytoplankton an integral food source for sea life, but–like land plants–they also absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, churn out about 50% of the oxygen we breathe, and when they die, they take stored carbon down to the ocean floor with them. 

Phytoplankton sustain much of life on our planet. And whale poop sustains them. 

“At a minimum, even a 1 percent increase in phytoplankton productivity thanks to whale activity would capture hundreds of millions of tons of additional CO2 a year, equivalent to the sudden appearance of 2 billion mature trees. Imagine the impact over the average lifespan of a whale, more than 60 years.”

Ralph Chami, et al., “Nature’s Solution to Climate Change”

Gray Whales Farm The Sea Floor

Gray whales feed by a unique means because their favorite food sources live in and under the sea floor. They dive down to the ocean bottom, turn on their side, and dredge up the ground. They suck up sediment along with little invertebrate delicacies, such as worms and crustaceans. Then they filter the water and silt out while trapping the little critters in their baleen.

All of that churning and tilling of the silty ocean floor releases nutrients, as does the release of the sediment through their baleen when the gray whales bring it up closer to the surface of the water. Gray Whales essentially get the food chain going wherever they eat, which is essential for human populations that rely on healthy fish stocks.

Studies show that where gray whales till the sea floor, there’s a huge increase in the amount of biological activity and productivity–up to 30 times as much density as compared to non-tilled zones. So in a way, it’s as if they’re farming. By attracting new populations of seafloor critters to the freshly tilled areas–a single gray whale adult can plow 100 acres of ocean bottom each summer–they ensure they’ll have plenty of food for next summer in the same area.

Whales and their Oceanic Food Delivery Service

Whales will follow their food sources, and so they’ll usually eat in one part of the world before leaving to mate and calve in another part of the world. They poop as they migrate, meaning they bring vitamins and minerals to other plankton-poor latitudes that would otherwise not receive these nutrient-rich food sources. This activates the food web in these areas, leading to more abundant fish populations and fish stocks, and more biodiversity in the area in general.

Policymakers & Economists: Whales are Worth Saving

So how do we encourage the world to protect whales? For better or for worse, we have to put a price tag on whales’ lives in this day and age for policymakers to understand their worth. Economists are looking to the United Nation’s REDD program, which provides incentives for forest conservation in many countries, as a model to provide similar incentives for whale conservation. 

The Blue BOAT Initiative is a whale preservation and protection project carried out by Chile’s Fundación MERI and funded by the Chilean Ministry of the Environment. A system of smart buoys and acoustic monitoring picks up on whales’ trajectories and can inform ship traffic early enough so that they can alter their routes accordingly. 

What You Can Do To Help

We, as a human collective, have to take steps NOW to protect and promote whale populations. It could still take more than 30 years to double the current amount of whales in our oceans today and we’re kind of short on time.

The Pacific Whale Foundation posted a list of 40 ways to save the whales for their 40th anniversary, which I recommend checking out. There are a lot of practical and simple tips that all of us can incorporate into our lives, no matter where we live: