By Jennifer Viegas
updated 10:04 p.m. ET, Tues., June 15, 2010
Sperm whale waste isn't much to look at. It's a diarrhea-like substance with a few squid beaks floating around. But new research has found it removes carbon from the atmosphere, helping to offset greenhouse gases that have been tied to global warming.
Sperm whales in the Southern Ocean release 220,462 tons of carbon when they exhale carbon dioxide at the water's surface, but their poo stimulates the drawdown of 440,925 tons of carbon, according to the research, published in the latest Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
These ocean giants and certain other marine mammals may therefore be among the most environmentally beneficial animals on the planet.
"If Southern Ocean sperm whales were at their historic levels, meaning their population size before whaling, we would have an extra 2 million tons (2,204,623 tons) of carbon being removed from our atmosphere each and every year," lead author Trisha Lavery told Discovery News.
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Their waste comes out as a giant liquid plume (save for the undigested squid beaks) that showers over minute aquatic plant "seed stocks," which she said are "just floating around waiting for nutrients so they can use them to grow and reproduce." The whale poo provides these nutrients, functioning as a natural fertilizer.
The plants, known as phytoplankton, take up carbon from the ocean as they grow. Through the entire life and death cycle of these plants, the carbon then stays "trapped" for centuries to millennia.
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"It is sometimes thought that conservationists try to 'save the whales' only because they are cute, however my work and the research of others is increasingly showing that whales play a crucial role in marine ecosystems," she said. "We must protect whales in order to have healthy, well-functioning marine ecosystems."
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I would say that conservationists try to 'save the whales' because it's the moral thing to do...
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