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Text: Mo Hanxue
Edited by Mo Hanxue
[Preface]
Since 1966, the international whaling commission has implemented measures to protect the blue whale creatures, but this measure has been blocked by Japan, and even once demanded that the ban be lifted......
For the huge creature of blue whales, it is really decreasing every year, and it is not easy for them to reproduce, coupled with the destruction of the marine environment today, it is even more deprived of their living environment.
And this blue whale creature is not only worth a lot of money in itself, but even their droppings can be auctioned for millions of dollars, and even more surprisingly, they can reach two tons in a single bowel movement!
Why is blue whale feces so valuable, and how do they contribute to the balance of the marine ecosystem?
[A whale falls, all things are born!]
The phrase "one whale falls, all things live" comes from the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle's "History of Animals", which roughly means that after the death of a large whale, its corpse will nourish countless creatures in the ocean......
From a biological point of view, whale fall is a natural phenomenon in which the body of a whale sinks to the bottom of the sea after death, this process is full of meaning, after all, everything in the ocean relies on whale fall to achieve a good ecological cycle, just like a gift from whales to the ocean, so scientists gave this grand funeral a special name - whale fall!
The carcass of a whale can "shine" on the seabed for hundreds of years, and the producers and consumers in the biological chain can enjoy the "welfare" brought by the whale fall, so the place where the whale carcass fell will also be called a "desert oasis".
According to the survey, whale falls in the northern Pacific Ocean support more than 12,000 creatures, which makes the place where the whale falls and the places near them extremely prosperous.
[It is not easy for blue whales to breed, and now the number is decreasing]
For blue whales, the mainland clearly prohibits hunting, but even with such regulations, the current number of blue whales is still decreasing.
You must know that adult blue whales can grow to about twenty or thirty meters and weigh about 180 tons, they live in oceans around the world, mainly feed on zooplankton, and are an important link in the marine food chain.
Blue whales, like ordinary whales, breathe with their lungs and usually float to the surface to spray water, but the jets of water are much more spectacular than other whales, usually reaching 9 to 12 meters tall.
Don't look at the size of the blue whale is very large, but its swimming speed is not low, the speed can reach 50 kilometers per hour when sprinting, it can be seen that although the blue whale is very large, but its speed is not limited.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the large-scale killing of blue whales brought the species to the brink of extinction.
At that time, nearly 360,000 blue whales were killed, and less than 50 remained, and many species of whales that have lived on the earth for more than 50 million years are already endangered.
Although blue whales barely survived in 1966 when cetaceans were fully protected, they are still a "red endangered species." ”
In addition, the breeding process of blue whales is very slow, they can only give birth to one calf every year to two years, so far, the number of blue whales is still decreasing, the number of blue whales in the world is about 10,000, and many of them can survive by artificial protection.
There are many reasons why blue whales are endangered, among which human activities are one of the most important reasons, such as overfishing, marine pollution and climate change, which will cause imbalances in the ecosystem and affect the survival of blue whales.
[Up to 2 tons of poop at a time!Among them, rare ambergris can also be found, worth millions of dollars]
The most amazing thing about the blue whale creatures is their feces, which are said to be up to two tons in a single bowel movement, and most importantly, a rare ambergris can be found in their feces, worth millions of dollars.
Among the blue whale creatures, there is a whale named "sperm whale", and its feces have the presence of ambergris, which is particularly fragrant, and the number of them in the market is very small.
These substances are eventually excreted with the feces to form ambergris, which is valuable not only because it takes a long time to form, but also because humans have no way to replicate it completely.
And after in-depth research by experts, it was found that the content of organic matter in the feces of blue whales is much higher than that of many organisms, and it is precisely because of this that its feces can become the "food" of marine organisms. ”
The blue whale has such a large amount of defecation, which means that it eats a lot, according to the survey: the blue whale has to pass at least four tons of food a day, and sometimes it can eat up to eight tons.
Blue whale feces also contain a lot of nitrogen and phosphorus, which are essential for marine life, so when a blue whale defecates, a large number of plankton and fish will quickly swarm and start looking for food.
You know, two tons of manure is enough to form a large biota in the ocean, and most of the marine creatures will look for food around the dung.
[It is forbidden to hunt blue whales, but Japan has repeatedly asked for the ban to be lifted!]
As we mentioned earlier, the number of blue whales is still decreasing, and this is because we have been proclaiming a ban on the killing of blue whales, but Japan has repeatedly asked for the ban to be lifted.
Since 1986, the International Whaling Commission has adopted a regulation, the Global Whaling Prohibition Convention, but this provision has one shortcoming: whaling can be carried out for scientific purposes.
This allowed Japan to take advantage of the loophole, and they began to hunt whales in the Antarctic waters and the Northwest Pacific under the guise of this.
Japan's actions are often condemned by the international community, but they don't pay much attention to it, instead saying that Japanese people are very fond of eating whales, and there is a special food festival every year for people to taste whale meat.
Later, in 2019, the Japanese government officially withdrew from the International Whaling Commission, and after the withdrawal, they resumed whaling operations.
According to relevant data, in 1987, Japan caught 1,082 whales of various types, and after the cessation of commercial whaling in Japan in 1988, the number quickly decreased to 241.
But between 1995 and 2000, the number of whals in Japan doubled compared to previous years, and then since 2001, the number of whals in Japan has continued to grow.
No matter how many other countries in the world ban whaling, Japan will always ask these countries to lift such bans, and the only reason is that people in Japan are particularly fond of eating whale meat........
[Contrasting cute!Oversized body but only eats small fish and shrimp]
Many netizens complained about what Japan was doing: It's just crazy! Especially after learning about the daily diet of blue whale creatures, this kind of complaint has become even stronger......
What everyone didn't expect was that a behemoth like the blue whale was not ferocious, and its recipe only had a variety of small fish and shrimp, giving people a feeling of "cuteness in contrast".
The living area of blue whales is generally where warm and cold waters meet, and this place is generally rich in nutrients, which is suitable for many species of plankton to survive.
And we briefly mentioned earlier that blue whales mainly feed on plankton, and there are usually some plankton and krill in places rich in nutrients.
Although the size of these two creatures is not worth mentioning in front of the blue whale, and it can even be said that it is not enough for us to be the blue whale plugged between the teeth, but the blue whale has a soft spot for these two creatures.
【Conclusion】
I have to say that the blue whale does have a very important role in the marine ecosystem, and it uses the end of its life to bring endless benefits to other creatures, which really makes people sigh at the greatness of life, but unfortunately the number of blue whales is getting smaller and smaller for various reasons.
I hope that we humans can start from ourselves, ban the killing of blue whales, and protect this creature.
Resources:
Jimu News reported on July 5, 2023 that 9.5 kilograms of ambergris were shocked into the carcass of sperm whales, worth 3.9 million yuan, known as "floating gold".
Science and Technology Daily reported on April 17, 2019 that "I want to trick you into going to the beach to pick up ambergris? Expert: You can pick it up if you don't want to".
On June 30, 2019, Finance Upstream and Downstream reported that Japan withdrew from the International Whaling Commission and will resume commercial whaling after 32 years