The Enormous Hole That Whaling Left Behind

 

Bruno Kahraman                                                                                                                      Nov 7, 2021

Chemistry C even                                                                                                                Current Event 7

 

Yong, Ed. "The Enormous Hole That Whaling Left Behind", The Atlantic, 3 Nov 2021. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/11/whaling-whales-food-krill-iron/620604/

For this current events assignment, I read "The Enormous Hole That Whaling Left Behind" by Ed Yong. This article centers around the relationship between whales, krill, and their growth patterns in the ecosystem. The article starts out with some context on whale hunting during the 20th century. During that time, whales were hunted for their oil, which was used to light lamps, lubricate cars, and make margarine. As the demand for the substance grew, so did the industrial scale in which whales were slaughtered. The article says, "In just six decades, roughly the life span of a blue whale, humans took the blue-whale population down from 360,000 to just 1,000. In one century, whalers killed at least 2 million baleen whales, which together weighed twice as much as all the wild mammals on Earth today." With such a great devastation to the number of whales, it was assumed by many scientists that the numbers of krill, small crustaceans that make up the bulk of whale diets, would skyrocket. The article describes how ecologist Matthew Savoca and colleagues developed a much more accurate method to measure how much krill whales eat, which has revealed previously unknown relationships between numbers of whale and krill. They were able to estimate that before whales were hunted on an industrial level, 430 million metric tons of krill were eaten every year by whales. However, today, after the large part of whale species have been killed, the total number of krill in the ocean has dropped down to less than 200 million metric tons. Normally if a predator species (in this case, whales) decreases in number, the number of its prey (krill in this case) would be expected to increase. The article says, "In the 1970s, many scientists assumed that the former whaling grounds would become a krillatopia, but instead, later studies showed that krill numbers had plummeted by more than 80 percent." The article goes on to explain this being due to a lack of iron, a mineral required in all living things. The North Atlantic Ocean, an area that once had large whale populations, gets its iron from dust blown over from the Sahara. However, in the South Atlantic Ocean, without the Sahara effect, most of the iron is stored in krill and other animals. After the whales ate the krill, their feces would turn into the ecosystem's compost and release the iron back into the ocean. The iron in the compost would then lead to a boost in the phytoplankton population, a prey for the krill to eat. The relation of whales, krill, and phytoplankton have strong correlation, with one species being affected, affecting the others. The article proceeds to explain a solution to the lack of krill. The article explains, "In 1990, the oceanographer John Martin proposed that the Southern Ocean is starved of iron, and that deliberately seeding its waters with the nutrient would allow phytoplankton to grow. The blooming plankton would soak up carbon dioxide, Martin argued, and cool the planet and slow the pace of global warming. Researchers have since tested this idea in 13 experiments, adding iron to small stretches of the Southern and Pacific Oceans and showing that plankton do indeed flourish in response." While John Martin's proposal for fertilizing ocean beds with iron for phytoplankton was meant to deal with climate change, the plan could also work to boost krill and whale population.

We as humans have a huge impact on our planet due to our consumption of resources. The more our collective civilization grows, the more resources we require. Whales were previously hunted for their oil, a substance that gained great value due to it being able to light lamps and lubricate cars. Our planet is now being faced with the enormous issue of climate change, the rising of global temperatures due to our carbon emissions. There is a possibility that we could combat both the issues of climate change and the devastation of whale and krill populations with John Martin's proposal. Both issues have dozens of teams pitching solutions and would take years to employ, but we need to face both issues with our best possible solutions, especially climate change.

After reading the article, I've come to the assertion that it was well written. The article begins by giving detailed context on the decline of whale populations and does a good job developing and explaining the food circle of whales, krill and phytoplankton. The article also ends by pitching a solution to the issue. One issue I had with the article was how it didn't bring up any other species related to the ones discussed. Another problem I had with the article was how it didn't discuss the end to whale hunting on an industrial scale. One way to solve both these problems could be adding two more paragraphs, one to address each issue.