What can whale poop teach us about ocean nutrients? This is what a recent study published in Communications Earth & Environment hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated a link between a ...

Whales of all shapes and sizes play a significant role in the health of marine ecosystems. About 50% of the air humans breathe is produced by the ocean, thanks to phytoplankton and whale waste. The ...

In the 20th century, people’s demand for whale blubber and baleen drove industrial whalers to kill roughly three million whales—a whopping 99 percent of the world’s large whale population. The ...

A recent theory proposes that whales weren't just predators in the ocean environment: Nutrients that whales excreted may have provided a key fertilizer to these marine ecosystems. Oceanographers now ...

A humpback whale urinating near Hawaii. Credit: Lars Bejder/NOAA Scientists have long understood that microbes, zooplankton, and fish are vital sources of recycled nitrogen in coastal waters. But ...

Scientists have discovered that whales move nutrients thousands of miles -- in their urine -- from as far as Alaska to Hawaii. These tons of nitrogen support the health of tropical ecosystems and fish ...

For too long, Humpback whales' urinary contributions to the ocean have been overlooked. Photograph By Martin Van Aswegen, NOAA Permit 21476 In the deep blue water, a one-month-old humpback whale ...