Excessive Whale hunting in the 20th century destroyed global whale populations, thus disrupting worldwide marine ecosystems. Less whales in the oceans means less whale poop in the oceans. That sounds like a great thing if you’re swimming near one, but it’s actually detrimental to the health of our oceans.
It turns out that whale poop plays a vital role in ocean ecosystems. It provides our oceans with a ton of nutrients needed to maintain health. Think of it like a nutrient-rich fertilizer that makes your lawn look healthy and verdant.
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The wide variety of nutrients in whale poop can stimulate phytoplankton growth, a vital part of marine food webs that helps capture a ton of carbon dioxide. The fewer whales dumping gallons of shit into the oceans at a time, the fewer nutrients keeping our oceans vibrant—and a lot more carbon choking sea life.
So, researchers at an organization called WhaleX Foundation developed a synthetic whale poop that mimics the myriad of positive ecological effects whale poop provides. This fake poop is specifically designed to boost ocean productivity by releasing nutrients into waters in short supply and stimulating phytoplankton blooms that absorb carbon dioxide and support marine life.
All of this is because whale poop contains concentrations of nutrients three to seven times higher than typical seawater. Every release of whale poop makes the ocean just a little bit healthier.
It’s not just the WhaleX Foundation that’s contributing to the replacement of all the missing whale poop our oceans have been yearning for. A chemist from the University of Cambridge in England named David King has been working on the Marine biomass regeneration project, which plans to scatter nutrient-rich dust made from volcanic and glacial sources all across the surface of the world’s oceans.
This mixture aims to trigger phytoplankton blooms, restore ecosystems, and maybe even restore some fish populations. King says his mixture is designed to be used near the surface of the ocean because that’s where whales do their pooping.
There are all sorts of hurdles before dumping heaps of artificial whale poop into the oceans to maintain balance becomes a normal practice, including legal issues to be worked out, international treaties regulating ocean pollution, and the like.
Should further testing determine fake whale poop is just as good as the real thing in keeping our oceans healthy, however, prepare for a whole blue-collar industry of artificial whale poop dumpers that will surely make for an excellent Discovery Channel series.
