sperm whales - the new cheerleaders

[Ken Gargett]

save the whale, save the world!!

<H1 class=articleHeading>A carbon sink with fins</H1>Australian scientists have found another very good reason to protect the sperm whale, but please finish your breakfast or lunch before reading on.

Research led by Trish Lavery at the School of Biological Sciences at Adelaide’s Flinders University, suggests the poo of the sperm whale is particularly in rich in iron, and because it comes in liquid form and is excreted near the surface, it doesn’t sink rapidly to the ocean floor.

Instead, it inspires the growth of phytoplankton which in turn absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It means that even after taking into account the considerable amount of carbon dioxide emitted when these giants of the sea respire, sperm whales are a highly effective, and highly mobile, carbon sink.

And more so than other whales, because as a deep diving feeder, the nutrients it defecates are additional to the total count – other sea animals tend to feed at the surface and simply recycle said nutrients.

Each sperm whale is estimated to absorb at least 35 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere each year. From the estimated population of 12,000 Southern Ocean sperm whales that remain after decades of hunting, that amounts to around 400,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.

According to the research, this carbon saved from the current numbers of Southern Ocean sperm whales amounts to just 0.05 per cent of the carbon emitted globally each year by fossil fuel burning, but the numbers of Southern Ocean sperm whales were once ten-fold the current population, and the paper estimates that two million tonnes of CO2 have been left in the atmosphere each year as a result of decimating the sperm whale population.

“This is a previously overlooked impact of industrial whaling,” the report says. Southern Ocean sperm whales, it notes, account for just 3 per cent of the world’s population of sperm whales, which means that the global sperm whale population may be a significant contributor to carbon drawdown. Whales had once been considered to be a net carbon emitter because of their respiration.

The latest paper suggests that other mammals and organisms that consume prey at depth and defecate nutrient rich waste near the surface could be performing a similar function – these include, pygmy whales, baleen whales and fin whales, and possibly also seals and sea-lions, though more research needs to be conducted to ascertain the liquidity and the buoyancy of their poo. A previous Australian-led study suggested that baleen whale faeces once accounted for more than 12 per cent of the iron in the Southern Ocean.

And the point of all this? Well, as nations meet and continue negotiations on how to remove the other 99.95 per cent of fossil fuel emissions under the UN-sponsored climate change talks, such biological solutions will become crucial, and become the basis for new market mechanisms and ascribe a value to hitherto unrecognised assets that will turn the business models of many industries on their head. And companies and their investors need to be aware of this.

It will happen in forestry, for that is what the REDD mechanism that is nearing agreement is designed to do – make the trees that stand in the world’s remaining rainforests more valuable alive than dead. It will likely occur in land use and farming, because these will form a fundamental part of the abatement proposals of the likes of Australia and some other industrialised nations.

And, as mentioned in my piece last week on BP’s short-sighted and costly dismissal of environmental benefits and basic risk management, it underlines the fact that simply exploiting a resource and selling it for coins does not mean that the practice is economically sound. This is a concept that will be underlined by the release of the UN’s Green Economy initiative later this year.

Take the whaling industry. After taking in the various costs and even after government subsidies, it is thought that Japanese whalers operate at a significant loss. Perhaps there is a more attractive proposition – at $100 per tonne of carbon, which is surely where the price is heading by 2020, that’s nearly $4000 a year per whale in avoided emissions. Anyone care to invest in whale poo futures?

[MIKA27]

Not to forget Ken that whale poop 'Ambergris' is also used to produce perfumes and if one can find some, you can get a HUGE sum of cash for it.

[Ken Gargett]

Not to forget Ken that whale poop 'Ambergris' is also used to produce perfumes and if one can find some, you can get a HUGE sum of cash for it.

i always thought ambergris was whale spew. learn something every day, though knowing the difference between whale crap and chuck is probably a skill i can survive without.

imagine if you could farm these things!

[MIKA27]

i always thought ambergris was whale spew. learn something every day, though knowing the difference between whale crap and chuck is probably a skill i can survive without.

imagine if you could farm these things!

It's funny because I was always led to believe it was whale poo and looking a the internet, I read that it's poo and chuck....!?

Apparently there are those who walk along the beach looking for Ambergris on a regular basis.

Each to their own, some look for shells, others for whale poop.

But, the price I've read per gram can range from $10 USD to $50 USD

[skindiver]

i always thought ambergris was whale spew. learn something every day, though knowing the difference between whale crap and chuck is probably a skill i can survive without.

imagine if you could farm these things!

Leave it to Ken to give us the scoop on poop!

[Ken Gargett]

Leave it to Ken to give us the scoop on poop!

i think i was the muck on chuck.

[JMH]

I thought ambergris was vomit... but that is based entirely on an episode of futurama, so don't quote me on it

[Fuzz]

I thought ambergris was vomit... but that is based entirely on an episode of futurama, so don't quote me on it

I remember that episode.

Whale Biologist: "You're covered in precious ambergris!"

Kif: "Precious... hamburgers?"

[The whale biologist sighs and presses a button on his belt. A holographic image of Roseanne appears.]

Holographic-Roseanne: "Ambergris. Noun. A grease-like product of the sperm whale's digestive tract that is used as a base in the finest perfumes. This has been Roseanne, your guide to the world of facts."

Ambergris is usually passed in the whale's poo, but can also be regurgitated if the pieces are too big to pass through the rectum. Apparently fresh ambergris smells like, well you guessed it, **** or vomit (depending on how it was excereted). However, if it has time to age in the ocean, it takes on a sweet musky marine smell.

[JMH]

"Now here's Mushu, the whale who thinks he's better than you!"