The Guardian reported that an international scientific team recently plans to spread artificial whale feces on the surface of the Indian Ocean in an attempt to rebuild the marine ecosystem.
As oceans become increasingly nutrient-poor, scientists search for solutions to rebuild them.
The purpose of this excrement experiment is simple: to explore whether it is possible to rebuild nutrient-starved marine ecosystems, restore dwindling fish populations, and address the climate crisis.
“Whales typically feed on krill, tiny crustaceans, about 300 meters below the surface,” said Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the UK government and one of the project’s leaders. “At that depth, the pressure on their backs is so great that they can’t defecate. So they defecate when they surface for air, creating floating faecal beds that, when hit by sunlight, produce phytoplankton, which feed the fish.” King is also director of the Centre for Climate Repair at the University of Cambridge.
The problem is that the number of whales on Earth is now only about 5% of what it was 400 years ago. Whaling has severely decimated the world's largest marine mammals, leaving the oceans long-term deprived of whale excrement that provides nutrition to fish. "We need ways to reconstruct past conditions," King said.
The rice husk-based "Marine Biomass Regeneration Project" is expected to be implemented next month.
To address this problem, the marine biomass regeneration project was created. Scientists, backed by several major marine laboratories, including the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and the Institute of Maritime Studies in Goa, India, are about to launch a crucial experiment to determine the project's feasibility.
“There’s a large-scale rice mill in Goa, and its main waste product is rice husks,” King said. “We’re going to mix nutrients with the roasted rice husks to create artificial whale poop. We’re going to float this on the ocean surface, and then we’re going to see if phytoplankton can grow and take over the role that whale poop plays. This experiment will be conducted in the Arabian Sea.”
King said the initial experiment, scheduled for next month, will be limited in scale and last only a few weeks, but has many potential benefits. "Besides providing food for fish, phytoplankton also absorbs carbon dioxide. So, one research project could potentially bring two benefits to the planet."
Source: Environmental Information Center (https://e-info.org.tw/node/233598)
