{"id":285242,"date":"2023-10-27T12:29:09","date_gmt":"2023-10-27T10:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=285242"},"modified":"2023-10-27T12:29:14","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T10:29:14","slug":"why-the-spike-in-pacific-gray-whales-deaths-is-all-natural","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=285242","title":{"rendered":"Why the Spike in Pacific Gray Whales Deaths is All Natural"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\u00a0Eschrichtius robustus, or gray whale, is a baleen whale named for the gray and white patches on its dark skin. Between the 17th and 20th centuries, whalers drove the gray whale to near extinction for its oil. Gray whales stand out from their heart-shaped blow in calm surface conditions. Scientists can identify each one based on their scars, patches, and dorsal surfaces. These markings come from the parasites that attach to them and leave in cold feeding grounds.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>From Jim Steele<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Gray whales are remarkably resilient animals. Eastern Pacific whales make a round-trip of 10,000 miles between their warm winter waters around Baja California to give birth, then to feed in the cold Bering and Chukchi Seas from May thru September, gaining enough energy that must sustain them for the rest of the year. Unlike other whales, gray whales have specialized on suctioning the sea floor for food, preferring sand dwelling amphipods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While experts suggest the optimal whale population has historically been between 18,000 and 22,000 individuals,<\/strong> their coastal migrations made them easy targets for whalers in the late 1800s, reducing their population to somewhere between just 250 and 5000 individuals. After receiving protection by the International Whaling Commission in 1947, they quickly rebounded and by 1995 were removed from US Endangered Species List. Despite climate change, by 2018 gray whale numbers increased to 27,000+<\/strong> and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature considered them a species of Least Concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why such increases<\/strong> in whale abundances? The lack of Bering Sea ice between 2012 and 2018 had allowed more photosynthesis. Stanford researchers reported a 57% increase in phytoplankton in the past 2 decades<\/strong>. That increased the food that sank to feed organisms on the sea floor (the benthos). In addition, less sea ice and a longer open-water season, enabled gray whales to spend more time feeding in the Chukchi and Bering Sea, gaining the energy needed for their 7-8 month fast, while enduring migration and reproduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, whenever gray whales approached peak abundances that may have exceeded their carrying capacity, they experienced sudden population crashes in 1987\u20131989, 1999\u20132000 and 2019\u2013202<\/strong> that NOAA has called an \u201cUnusual Mortality Event\u201d (illustration C). All the evidence suggests gray whales experience the classic ecological \u201cboom and bust\u201d<\/strong> dynamics (exemplified by the relationship between the lynx and snowshoe hare that\u2019s taught in every 8th grade science class- middle illustration). The whales\u2019 main prey (ampeliscid amphipods) can only feed a limited number of whales. As the whale populations increased beyond that level, they \u201ceat themselves out of house and home\u201d, the prey species crashes followed by whale numbers quickly crashing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To counter the acknowledged positive effects of global warming, a recent paper (Stewart 2023) was compelled to push an unsupported narrative that global warming, not abundant whales, had reduced the ampeliscid amphipod prey. This led to numerous click-bait media headlines spreading misinformation about the gray whale deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bottom graphic highlights (red circles) the 2 main feeding hotspots that almost all gray whales now depend on. It is interesting to note that during the low sea levels of the last ice age, those hotspots were high and dry and relegated to Arctic tundra just 8-10,000 years ago. As sea levels rose, these hotspots became shallow seas with depths mostly less that 50 meters<\/strong>. It is that shallowness that allows more food to sink from the surface to the benthos before bacteria can decompose it, thus nurturing an abundance of sea floor organisms. In addition, the nourishment carried by the 3 major northbound currents further maintains these hotspots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stewart (2023) acknowledged that the loss of Bering Sea ice has perhaps enabled gray whales populations to grow beyond their pre-whaling maximums. However, apparently to grift the government climate crisis funding, he also offered a very contradictory narrative blaming global warming and less ice for reducing the whales\u2019 prey. Despite research showing that less ice increased phytoplankton by 57% in 2 decades, Stewart reiterated to numerous media outlets that “With less ice, you get less algae, which is worse for the gray whale prey”.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stewart (2023) was alluding to an unproven hypothesis, previously pushed by his co-author, that global warming reduces sea-ice-algae, algae that only grows on the bottom of sea ice. Climate alarmists have pushed the unsupported narrative for a decade that sea-ice-algae provides the critical food for the benthos food web. Click-bait media like ScienceNews headlined \u201cSea ice algae drive the Arctic food web\u201d<\/em>. What those grifters fail to share with the public is sea-ice-algae only contributes on average a meager 3% of all Arctic production, compared to the 97% provided by increasing phytoplankton where sea ice melts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, sea-ice-algae requires sunlight, so thick multi-year sea ice reduces photosynthesis. Due to the loss of multi-year ice, more transparent first year ice has nearly doubled since 1980, which increases sea-ice-algae production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, in their desperate attempt to link whale deaths to a climate crisis, Stewart (2023) cherry-picked the fact that less ice can change the speed of ocean currents and erode the sediments that large amphipods prefer. However, Stewart does not share that abundant amphipods prevent such erosion. Ampeliscid amphipods build mucus-lined tubes in the sand. As their density increases, individual tubes coalesce to form a mat that prevent currents from eroding away the sediments and thus preserving a stable environment for more abundant amphipods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet again, it is the growing population of hungry gray whales that bulldoze those mats, reducing amphipod abundance, enhancing a classic natural boom and bust dynamic!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Eschrichtius robustus, or gray whale, is a baleen whale named for the gray and white patches on its dark skin. Between the 17th and 20th centuries, whalers drove the gray whale to near extinction for its oil. Gray whales stand out from their heart-shaped blow in calm surface conditions. Scientists can identify each one based […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":285249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The\u00a0Eschrichtius robustus, or gray whale, is a baleen whale named for the gray and white patches on its dark skin. Between the 17th and 20th centuries, whalers drove the gray whale to near extinction for its oil. Gray whales stand out from their heart-sha","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818897,691818056,691818102,691820919,691818087,691824029,691824030,691818337],"class_list":{"0":"post-285242","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-bering-sea","9":"tag-climate-change","10":"tag-climate-crisis","11":"tag-deaths","12":"tag-global-warming","13":"tag-gray-whales","14":"tag-phytoplankton","15":"tag-whale-deaths","17":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/0Gray-whale-breaching.webp?fit=1600%2C1067&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1ccG","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":257583,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=257583","url_meta":{"origin":285242,"position":0},"title":"Right, Washington Post, Whales Aren\u2019t Carbon Sinks, Especially If Offshore Wind Kills Them","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"15\/05\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"There\u2019s too much of a coincidence here to ignore, and we continue to rapidly push forward. This activity off our coast is only going to dramatically increase as they begin pile-driving and installing these wind turbines. So if this is having an effect on our marine mammals now, it could\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Climate change\"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-change"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/0ad_194203865.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/0ad_194203865.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/0ad_194203865.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/0ad_194203865.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/0ad_194203865.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":332091,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=332091","url_meta":{"origin":285242,"position":1},"title":"Licenced to Kill: Wind Industry\u2019s Atlantic Whale Slaughter Gets New Govt.\u00a0Greenlight","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"08\/06\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The wind industry\u2019s licence to kill whales and other marine mammals is the perfect example of institutional corruption. 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