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If ancient gray whale populations migrated and fed the same as today’s whales, what happened during the Ice Ages, when their major feeding grounds disappeared? UC Berkeley and Smithsonian paleontologists argue that gray whales utilized a range of food sources in the past, including herring and krill, in addition to the benthic organisms they consume today. As a result, prewhaling populations were two to four times greater than today’s population of around 22,000.
Tag: oceans
Mercury levels have risen in Pacific albatross over last century
April 19, 2011:
While at Harvard and now UC Berkeley, graduate student Anh-Thu Elaine Vo analyzed museum specimens of the black-footed albatross to see if she could track historical levels of methylmercury, a toxic chemical produced by humans. She showed that the bird’s feathers contain levels consistent with the global increase in mercury emissions since 1880.
