Humpback whales are forming super-groups
bbc.com131 points by andsoitis 3 days ago
131 points by andsoitis 3 days ago
There must have been so much unseen behavior when there were millions more whales in the ocean. Here's hoping that we can see more
Given the current trajectory of whale populations, 'we' probably won't be seeing that. Maybe in many generations of humans.
Well, the population growth probably isn't linear, so maybe?
Warming will kill off most of the systems these animals depend on within 30 years.
Why put a number on it? Every number so far has been wrong. Can we agree on the negative impacts of humans on an environment conducive to humanity without putting obviously wrong timings on predictions? I bet your intention is to provoke urgency but to most people it just causes an eye roll because it's not true, whereas the underlying ideas are true.
cod fishing boats used to have to be wary of the catch being so big that it would tip the boat.
We have no real frame of reference for what we've already lost.
Of course we do, you just gave an example. In fact if we truly didn't, then there would be no problem.
And will give way to many which thrive or evolve to thrive in hotter climates?
In human time scales, the species which thrive will tend to be the adaptive generalists. Evolution takes time.
It's gonna take a minute (on a geological timescale) for the ecosystems to be able to reliably sustain megafauna again.
Given that we support megafauna today, could you explain why? Legitimately asking, since I don't see a reason they couldn't adapt just as well.
Because evolution is slow and the climate change is going fast.
Evolution of small things like algae and the krill which feed on it and feed the whale is quite fast. Single celled organisms reproduce on the scale of 20 minutes and hold immense amounts of genetic diversity in their populations to facilitate the success of a better adapted line almost immediately. Additionally, they are adept at horizontal gene transfer from other well-adapted organisms.