Skip to content
All articles
  • All articles
  • About whales & dolphins
  • Create healthy seas
  • End captivity
  • Fundraising
  • Green Whale
  • Prevent bycatch
  • Prevent deaths in nets
  • Stop whaling
MicrosoftTeams-image (9)

Double Your Impact for Marine Animal Rescue & Response

On a chilly day this past December, the WDC North America team celebrated the first...
20230126_091707

WDC’s Education Wishlist = Cleared!

To the WDC Community, I want to thank you so much for your support of...
Hysazu Photography

Looking forward for Southern Resident orcas in 2023

Hysazu Photography 2022 was a big year for Southern Resident orcas - 2022 brought the...
Credit: Seacoast Science Center

The Unlikely Adventure of Shoebert, a Young Grey Seal Who Visited an Industrial Park Pond

Credit: Seacoast Science Center In mid-September, our stranding partners in northern Massachusetts were inundated with...
Leaping harbour porpoise

The power of harbour porpoise poo

We know we need to save the whale to save the world. Now we are...
Right whale - Regina WDC

Whale and Dolphin Conservation: Change Through Policy.

WDC focuses on education, research, conservation projects, and policy work to create a sustainable future...
Clear the list graphic

Clear WDC’s Amazon Wishlist for Giving Tuesday

UPDATE: We are thrilled to report that everything was donated off of our Amazon Wishlist...
Fin whales are targeted by Icelandic whalers

Speaking truth to power – my week giving whales a voice

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting is where governments come together to make decisions about whaling...

Why whale poo matters (and why whales are important for a healthy planet)

At the meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Slovenia, delegates are considering a highly unusual proposal. They will be asked to consider whales – not as food – but as essential contributors to a healthy marine eco-system.

The IWC meets every two years. It is where the battle is played out between a few whaling countries and those that seek to protect these majestic creatures.

Japan, Iceland and Norway continue to hunt whales in spite of the global moratorium in place since 1986. Using a loophole which allows ‘scientific’ whaling, Japan argues that whales are consuming too many fish. And the only way to study this supposed impact is to kill them.

But research is telling us a very different story, and delegates from Chile, are making sure countries at this year’s IWC will hear it. WDC has been lobbying hard for support of this groundbreaking initiative by supplying scientific background and a comprehensive briefing to delegates.

Proposed by Chile, their Resolution on cetaceans and ecosystem services, asks delegates to consider whales in terms of the ‘services’ they provide to the marine environment. In support of the resolution, WDC has submitted a formal briefing citing multiple peer reviewed scientific articles demonstrating that rebounding whale populations help rebuilding fish stocks and combating climate change.

Evidence is mounting that whales are an essential part of the ecosystem in two main ways;

Firstly, through transferring nutrients within the water column and across latitudes. Because whales feed at depth but defecate at the surface, they recycle and move nutrients to the surface waters where they are available to the tiny plantlike organisms called phytoplankton. As large whales migrate, they continue to free nutrients mobilizing their ecological value for drifting phytoplankton. Phytoplankton are the very base of the marine food web on which all fish stocks ultimately rely. They are also responsible for the production of at least half of the world’s oxygen.

Secondly, whales help combat climate change. Carbon sequestration, or the removal of carbon from the atmosphere is a primary mitigation to climate change for which whales can play a significant role. The eventual sinking of phytoplankton blooms resulting from whale nutrient availability can sequester hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon annually. Furthermore, whale falls. (which occur when a whale dies of natural causes and sinks), are the largest form of natural waste on the ocean bottom. These falls not only result in the development of mini-ecosystems, but also sequester large amounts of carbon. Researchers estimate that as a direct result of whaling, large whales now store approximately 9 million tons less carbon than before whaling.

Research continues to show that the recovery of whales is an important step in the fight against climate change and the Chilean resolution is a vital step towards the global understanding and appreciating of the role whales play in maintaining healthy oceans, healthy fish stocks and even a healthy planet.

WDC believes that there are no thresholds of killing whales that we should consider sustainable. According to Astrid Fuchs, WDC’s Stop Whaling Programme Lead, “we should not be having conversations about managing whale stocks, we should only be talking about how we can promote and enable their recovery as our survival depends on theirs.”