Krill and whales have a great autumn

There are reports that krill and whales have been seen in record numbers along the Antarctic Peninsula coast for this late in the Southern Hemisphere autumn. And it could be connected to climate change. (Of course, most everything could.)

Record Number of Whales, Krill Found in the Antarctic Bays

“Such an incredibly dense aggregation of whales and krill has never been seen before in this area at this time of year,” says Douglas P. Nowacek, Repass-Rodgers University Associate Professor of Conservation Technology at Duke. Most studies have focused on whale foraging habitats located in waters farther offshore in austral summer.

Related to climate change?

"Advancing winter sea ice used to cover much of the peninsula’s bays and fjords by May, protecting krill and forcing humpback whales to migrate elsewhere to find food, Nowacek says, but rapid climate change in the area over the last 50 years has significantly reduced the extent, and delayed the annual arrival, of the ice cover.

"The lack of sea ice is good news for the whales in the short term, providing them with all-you-can-eat feasts as the krill migrate vertically toward the bay’s surface each night. But it is bad news in the long term for both species, and for everything else in the Southern Ocean that depends on krill,” says Ari S. Friedlaender, co-principal investigator on the project and research scientist at Duke."

Bad news is that the change in sea ice could ultimately affect krill population abundance, and that would affect everything that eats them.