How Whales Help Fight Climate Change

It's known that one whale is worth more than a thousand trees when it comes to carbon sequestration. Whales are living reservoirs of carbon, meaning rebuilding whale populations on a global scale can be the solution to a climate crisis. What most people don't realize is that the ocean absorbs around 25 percent of carbon emissions. It's an enormous carbon sink and that means that it takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere So that's why protecting our oceans is really key when it comes to climate solutions. Whales are a type of blue carbon and the point of blue carbon is that it stays in the ocean and out of the atmosphere. So the more living things we have in the ocean, the more carbon sequestration and especially when they're big things like whales. One large whale like a humpback whale can export tons of carbon to the deep sea throughout its life. When whales poop it This is the same phytoplankton that produces over half of the oxygen we breathe. Phytoplankton takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere through photosynthesis and while carbon is stored in whales tissues for their entire lives, the living processes, like pooping, fuels more plankton and more carbon capture in our oceans. If a great whale, a big baleen whale, lives 60 years, it's thought it will sequester 33 tons of carbon dioxide throughout its lifespan. This is compared to about 40 pounds that a tree sequesters. Some threats to whales include boat strikes and fishing gear entanglement like we see in the endangered North Atlantic right whale population or prey loss and noise pollution like we see in the southern resident killer whale population. Across the board, entanglement and fishing gear is a primary threat to whales and as we continue to pollute our ocean with derelict gear, it becomes harder and harder for these whale populations to rebound and survive. We've seen comeback stories though with populations like the North Pacific humpback whales so we know successful whale conservation and population recovery is possible. To be part of the solution, I would recommend becoming educated on the threats to whales and then take action to fight those threats. This might look like calling your elected official and asking them to end subsidies to industrial fishing that pollutes the ocean with the same gear that entangles whales. It also might look like advocating to recover prey populations like in the southern resident killer whales that are losing their prey source of chinook salmon, so that might be calling an elected official and telling them to support the breaching of the lower four snake river dams. On an individual level, we can choose to eat less seafood, create less waste, and on a community level, we can add education and outreach materials to boat captains and boaters to prevent vessel strikes and protect whales on the water. One of the best solutions to protecting whales is to support the initiative called 30 by 30 through marine protected areas. The goal for 30 by 30 is to protect 30 percent of the ocean by 2030 and these marine protected areas will serve to protect critical habitat for whales, the prey sources that whales depend on, and allowing safe havens for them to recover and thrive.