Whales

A Carbon Diet

Carbon is found in all living things, and so plants and animals act as carbon reservoirs throughout their lifetimes.

Paul Nicklen

Animals that are larger and live longer store more carbon, which is why marine megafauna, such as whales, play a vital role in reducing global carbon emissions.

A whale that survives to be 60 will accumulate a whopping 33 tonnes of CO2 on average during its lifespan. Effectively, whales live on a diet of carbon, not fish.

Paul Nicklen

When whales die, their bodies sink to the seafloor, trapping the vast quantities of carbon which are then unlikely to resurface for thousands of years.

Not only that, but while they are alive, whales curb climate change in a surprising way. Whales feed in the depths of the ocean, swimming up to the surface at intervals to breathe—and poop. Their iron-rich faeces greatly encourages phytoplankton and marine plants to grow, which go on to remove carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.

Cristina Mittermeier

Industrial whaling decimated whales in the twentieth century, but before that, their populations (excluding sperm whales) were bringing up to 1.9 million tonnes of carbon per year to the ocean bottom—the equivalent of taking 410,000 cars off the road each year.

Restoring whale populations is therefore one of many remarkable solutions offered by the ocean to help tackle the climate crisis.