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Additionally, the iron-rich feces of krill-eating whales encourage phytoplankton growth, benefiting the marine food chain and sequestering carbon dioxide for extended periods. The Southern Ocean , rich in nutrients but iron-deficient, experiences increased phytoplankton blooms due to whale feces, acting as a significant carbon sink .
About 240 pilot whales beached themselves in the northwest of Chatham Island, just 3 days before 240 whales beached themselves at nearby Pitt Island. [43] Chatham Island, New Zealand: 230 195 35 2022 About 230 pilot whales beached themselves on the west coast of Tasmania, exactly two years to the day of another mass stranding in the same area. [44]
Sperm whales increase levels of primary production and carbon export by depositing iron-rich faeces into surface waters of the Southern Ocean. The iron-rich faeces cause phytoplankton to grow and take up more carbon from the atmosphere. When the phytoplankton dies, it sinks to the deep ocean and takes the atmospheric carbon with it.
Whales are “large-bodied animals, they live for a long time, many of them migrate over vast distances,” said study leader Heidi Pearson, a marine biologist at the University of Alaska Southeast.
The whales eat amphipod crustaceans like tiny shrimp and worms, which they consume by sucking up water and sediment from the seafloor, where such creatures live, then using their baleens to filter ...
Some whales, such as the sperm or Cuvier's beaked, can spend over an hour between breaths, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation reports. It may not look like it, but whales have hair .
During this feeding season humpback whales actively feed for up to twenty-two hours a day. [4] They do this so they can store enough fat reserves to live through their breeding season when they do not eat at all. [4] Humpback whales typically spend summer months in feeding grounds with cooler waters that they return to every year. [5]
The presence of mercury in fish is a health concern for people who eat them, especially for women who are or may become pregnant, nursing mothers, and young children. Fish and shellfish concentrate mercury in their bodies, often in the form of methylmercury , a highly toxic organomercury compound.