{"id":15076,"date":"2024-02-04T12:48:25","date_gmt":"2024-02-04T12:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/04\/save-the-whales-was-a-shining-success-now-can-humpbacks-save-us-from-ourselves\/"},"modified":"2024-02-04T12:48:25","modified_gmt":"2024-02-04T12:48:25","slug":"save-the-whales-was-a-shining-success-now-can-humpbacks-save-us-from-ourselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/04\/save-the-whales-was-a-shining-success-now-can-humpbacks-save-us-from-ourselves\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Save the Whales\u2019 was a shining success. Now can humpbacks save us from\u00a0ourselves?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Programming Note: Watch\u00a0The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper: What Whales Tell Us<\/em>\u00a0tonight at 8 p.m. ET\/PT.<\/p>\n

About 15 billion miles from where you sit, two 12-inch golden records are hurtling through outer space with multilingual greetings to the universe from 55 humans and one humpback whale. <\/p>\n

With a playlist curated by astronomer Carl Sagan and inspired by the way humpbacks use low frequencies to send messages across entire oceans, they were launched on NASA\u2019s two Voyager probes in 1977. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs much as the sounds of any baleen whale, it is a love song cast upon the vastness of the deep.\u201d Sagan wrote of the golden records. <\/p>\n

And, since 95% of the planet\u2019s biggest species had been harpooned to oblivion at the time, it could\u2019ve easily been the kind of love song that ends in tears. <\/p>\n

But almost a half-century later, the comeback of the humpback is arguably the greatest success story in the history of conservation. While artificial intelligence could one day help us understand the lyrics of those songs in space, new science is putting a dollar value on the life of a whale \u2014 and finding they provide so much more than blubber and song. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re literally seeding the upper parts of the ocean with the opportunity for plant life to grow,\u201d veteran marine ecologist Ari Friedlaender explained while bobbing on a Zodiac raft off the Antarctic Peninsula. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what feeds the food for whales, birds, seals \u2014 everything. They\u2019re basically farmers recycling nutrients and there\u2019s more<\/em> food available to them the more they\u2019re around.\u201d <\/p>\n

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<\/span>CNN<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

When baleen whales gulp vital nutrients like iron and nitrogen from the depths of the sea and defecate at the surface, they serve as the ocean\u2019s biggest fertilizer pumps \u2014 feeding the tiny phytoplankton which produces half the world\u2019s oxygen and captures as much planet-warming CO2 as four Amazon rainforests while holding up the bottom of the food chain. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the gold,\u201d smiled Chris Johnson, the global lead of whale and dolphin conservation at the World Wildlife Fund, as he held up a whale stool sample jarred from the chilly Antarctic water. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have the poo. Repeat, we have humpback poo,\u201d Eva Prendergast, the British polar scientist at the helm, radioed back to the Ocean Endeavor, the cruise ship serving as base. <\/p>\n

The team interacted with dozens of whales over the course of four days in Antarctica. They used specialized camera drones to measure body size and suction-cupped tags slapped onto the animals\u2019 backs with a long pole to record the way they move while capturing whale\u2019s-eye-view video. <\/p>\n

But the most useful tools were MacGyvered into existence back at the lab in Santa Cruz. For over a decade, Friedlaender\u2019s team has been using crossbows with hollow-tipped darts to collect biopsy samples. It feels like \u201ca mosquito bite\u201d to the whales, Johnson said, but what they can test for is priceless: from stress hormones to toxins to \u2014 most importantly \u2014 pregnancy rates. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat else tells you how a population is growing or shrinking?\u201d Friedlaender said after darting a humpback with a 20-yard shot and securing the tip in a sterile zip lock bag. \u201cWe can now tell if that whale is pregnant or not.\u201d <\/p>\n

He has over 2,500 samples from the same region back in a fridge at UC Santa Cruz, a data set that allows him to compare fertility rates with year-by-year changes in the environment. And as global warming melts sea ice at staggering rates, the habitat for krill is shrinking and humpback pregnancies are dropping. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first year of life, juvenile krill spend the winter under the sea ice and feed on the microbial and algal communities,\u201d Friedlaender explained. \u201cWe have a very good understanding that when you have a poor sea ice year, the following year you\u2019re going to have lower reproductive rates. In good ice years, the reproductive rates are very high.\u201d <\/p>\n

Since the last two years have been the lowest levels of sea ice on record around Antarctica, the correlation is worrying, and the trend is only expected to accelerate as the planet warms. <\/p>\n

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<\/span>CNN<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

21st century threats<\/h2>\n

But the climate crisis is just one tragic setback in the humpback\u2019s comeback. While on the longest migration routes of any animal, whales must dodge cargo ships on crowded coastlines, \u201cghost\u201d fishing gear cut loose at sea and floating clouds of plastic pollution. <\/p>\n

And because of a global market for omega-3 krill oil supplements and nutraceutical feed for pets and fish farms, whales now compete with humans for their main source of food. <\/p>\n

Industrial krill fishing fleets are taking to the Southern Ocean in growing numbers and have been recorded dragging their nets into areas full of feeding whales. After years of challenging whalers, the activist group Sea Shepherd will spend this season tracking krill fishers. <\/p>\n

Early in a career devoted to marine mammals, Johnson spent five years sailing on the research vessel of Roger and Katy Payne, the married scientists who blew humanity\u2019s minds by releasing Songs of the Humpback Whale<\/em> <\/em>in 1970. <\/p>\n

While people were familiar with the echolocating clicks of dolphins and orcas, the first baleen whale noises were recorded by Navy engineer Frank Watlington by accident in the 1950s, and after the Paynes worked with fellow cetologist Scott McVay to record more humpback songs around Bermuda, they were played during marine mammal protection hearings in Congress and the United Nations. Ten million copies were inserted into National Geographic<\/em> magazine in 1979 \u2014 the largest single pressing in history \u2014 and a global movement to Save The Whales grew big enough to \u2026 save the whales. <\/p>\n

By 1986, the International Whaling Commission had instituted a global ban on all commercial whaling. While Japan, Norway and Iceland have continued regardless, years of lawsuits and international pressure forced Japan to lower its annual quota of Minke whales from 1,000 to 333, and the two boats of Kristj\u00e1n Loftsson, Iceland\u2019s last whaler, harpooned two dozen fin whales in 2023. <\/p>\n

But while the commercial harpoon is critically endangered, other threats remain \u2014 especially to whales that aren\u2019t as supremely adaptable as the humpback. <\/p>\n

Scientists believe there are only about 360 North Atlantic right whales left on Earth \u2014 a species named by whalers who pointed out the \u201cright ones\u201d to hunt. Entanglements with fishing and lobster gear are the main hazard for the species migrating from the Arctic down the Atlantic coast. But concern over the North Atlantic right whale, and a number of other species, found dead on American beaches has galvanized an unusual coalition of environmentalists, fishermen and Republican beach town mayors hoping to stop the development of offshore wind farms. <\/p>\n

On a campaign stop in South Carolina, former President Donald Trump mocked a call for ship speed limits during whale migration season while blaming the nascent wind industry for the harm. \u201cWindmills are causing whales to die in numbers never seen before,\u201d Trump said, with no evidence to support the claim. <\/p>\n

While pursuing its goal of generating 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030, the Biden administration recently finalized plans to protect whales by limiting leases that could impact key whale habitat, monitoring noise thresholds and helping develop whale-safe fishing gear, like innovative lobster pots which are brought to the surface with remote-controlled air bags instead of ropes. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a positive sign that the Biden administration is doing this in a collaborative approach involving science, communities, industry and government agencies,\u201d Johnson said, and described how \u201cbubble curtains\u201d around turbine installations can contain acoustic pollution. <\/p>\n

A whale\u2019s song<\/h2>\n

Advances in artificial intelligence are beginning to help experts like Johnson and Friedlaender spot patterns of behavior previously unseen, while others hope to use AI to eventually understand the \u201clyrics\u201d in humpback song. <\/p>\n

In December, a Templeton Foundation-funded team from the University of California at Davis and the Whale SETI Institute had a 20-minute \u201cconversation\u201d with a humpback in Alaska. <\/p>\n

When they played a whale\u2019s \u201cthrruup\u201d call recorded in the same spot the day before, a female humpback known as Twain responded 36 times, matching the intervals and waiting for responses from the boat. <\/p>\n

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<\/span>CNN<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Alaska team\u2019s federal permit only allowed it to engage with Twain for 20 minutes, and when they stopped the playback, \u201cshe basically called three times as she was moving away and then stopped,\u201d McCowan said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like, \u2018where\u2019d you go, my new friends? Where\u2019d you go?\u2019\u201d Sharpe speculated. <\/p>\n

While female humpbacks communicate in \u201cthrruups\u201d and \u201cbloops,\u201d only males sing in the haunting tones that travel so well through the depths, and there is debate over whether they are more like singers in a seductive boy band or rivals in a rap battle. <\/p>\n

Carl Sagan was among the generation who believed they are mating calls like those of birds. <\/p>\n

\u201cI work with a couple of these projects that are trying to use AI to understand the context and the meaning to animal communication, but I don\u2019t have a need to talk to a whale,\u201d Friedlaender said when asked about the possibilities. \u201cA whale shouldn\u2019t have to tell us \u2018Here\u2019s all the things you\u2019re doing to screw us.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIf I could talk to a whale, I\u2019d say \u2018Sorry,\u2019\u201d Friedlaender added. <\/p>\n

While in Antarctica, he was giddy with the news that the first-ever Global Oceans Treaty had passed in the United Nations, creating a framework to protect 30% of the oceans by 2030, including key whale migration corridors. But almost a year later, only one country has ratified it. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are seeing countries start to ratify it, but it\u2019s urgent we move fast,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cAs soon as 60 countries ratify it, it enters into force. Last week Palau was the first, with Chile and the Maldives soon to do so. We\u2019re hopeful others will ratify soon.\u201d <\/p>\n

At times, such diplomacy can feel as whimsical as launching golden records of whale song out of the galaxy. <\/p>\n

\u201cMany, if not most of our messages will be indecipherable,\u201d Carl Sagan wrote of the Voyager message. \u201cBut it is important to try.\u201d <\/p>\n

People saved the whales once. By doing it again, the experts say, humankind will enjoy the added benefit of saving itself. <\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Programming Note: Watch\u00a0The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper: What Whales Tell Us\u00a0tonight at 8 p.m. ET\/PT. About 15 billion miles from where you sit, two 12-inch golden records are hurtling through outer space with multilingual greetings to the universe from 55 humans and one humpback whale. With a playlist curated by astronomer Carl Sagan and <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":15077,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15076","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}