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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...en-humans-killed-3-million-of-them/ar-AAQhjRAAn adult North Pacific blue whale is thought to eat 16 metric tons of krill every day during foraging season. A bowhead whale would eat about six metric tons of zooplankton per day.
Marine ecologist Matthew Savoca, from Stanford University, is the lead author of a study that looks at how much food these giant mammals actually consume. Previous estimates of their food intake was largely based on just a few measurements, so the team looked at data from 321 tagged whales sized between 30 and 100 feet that lived in the Atlantic, Pacific and Southern Oceans.
And whales produce a lot of poop, which feeds life forms at the bottom of the food chain.The study suggests that if whale populations were restored, and levels of phytoplankton increased accordingly, over 200 million metric tons of carbon could be absorbed and stored in ocean systems. These benefits could also increase year on year, the team says.
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