whales threatened with extinction, according to a study

The number of whales has fallen by 20% in the North Pacific and Australian researchers blame climate change for disrupting the marine ecosystem.

Who wants the skin of humpback whales? After being hunted for centuries, the largest marine mammal was seriously threatened with extinction. In the 1970s, there were only 1,200 to 1,600 whales left in the North Pacific. But in 1982, the International Whaling Commission made a decision that would change everything: the ban on commercial whaling. With spectacular effects. Humpback whale populations were recovering, there were more than 30,000 in the North Pacific in 2012. To the point that the United States had removed them from the list of endangered species. But that was without taking into account another threat: climate change.

Whales dying of starvation

New Australian research, published on February 28, shows that between 2012 and 2021, in less than 10 years, the number of whales fell by 20% in the North Pacific. Because marine heat waves disrupt the entire marine ecosystem and reduce the production of phytoplankton, these plants at the base of the whales’ food chain. To be satisfied, whales can swallow up to four tonnes of plankton per day.

After being decimated by hunters, today it is hunger that is killing the whales. THE Guardian tells, for example, this week how Festus, a whale who used to return every year for 44 years, off the coast of Alaska, was found dead of starvation in 2016.

Australian scientists, who recall that whales are sentinels of the health of the oceans, are calling for urgent action against climate change. By making, as in 1982 when whale hunting was banned, the right choices at the right time.