Whales are recovering from near extinction, but industrial fishing around Antarctica competes for their sole food source

The Southern Ocean encircling Antarctica is the world’s largest feeding ground for baleen whales – species like humpbacks that filter tiny organisms from seawater for food. In the 20th century, whalers killed roughly 2 million large whales in the Southern Ocean. Some populations, like the Antarctic blue whale, were reduced by more than 99% and have been struggling to recover, even though most nations ended commercial whaling in the mid-1980s. Read more at The Conversation

Read More
Doreen Henning-Fagan
Ice shelves hold back Antarctica’s glaciers from adding to sea levels – but they’re crumbling

Previous estimates of ice shelf loss come from satellite measurements, which captured ice shelves gradually thinning in recent years. We tracked how much extra ice had been lost as icebergs calve away from the retreating edge of the continent. We found Antarctica’s ice shelves have lost twice as much mass as previous studies suggested. Read more on The Conversation

Read More
ICE, sea iceGuest UserICE, sea ice