The president of our chapter of Earth Guardians also gave a presentation on food waste! A lot of pollution and carbon dioxide is emitted for food production, just for a large portion of that food to go to waste. Take a look at the presentation to see the effects of food waste and how you can help solve the problem.
A video is included in the presentation, but if you can't access it through the link on the presentation, it is also attached below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ishA6kry8nc
During the first Earth Guardians meeting of the year, our club president gave a short presentation on the 3Rs. Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling is a key principle to living more sustainably.
I gave a presentation in my Earth Guardians club about heat waves and wildfires. These events are increasing as global warming ramps up, and they cause serious problems around the world.
Heat Waves and Wildfires presentation
In the presentation, it mentions that heat waves can be caused by a high-pressure system. This is a brief summary of how high-pressure systems cause heat waves:
The Earth absorbs heat from the sun, and then the ground warms the surrounding air. Therefore, the atmosphere is warmer closer to the earth. Normally, air cycles around the globe, and warm air will rise above cold air because it is less dense. As the warm air rises, it will continually cool until the air mass starts to descend again. Water vapor in the warm air will also rise until the air cools and the water condenses into clouds. However, high-pressure systems act like a ceiling that forces warm air downwards. This means that the air mass just keeps getting hotter and hotter because it is trapped near the earth, its source of heat, which then leads to a heat wave. There is also very little to no rain during a heat wave because all the water vapor is trapped near the earth with the warm air, so the vapor cannot cool down enough to condense into clouds.
All living organisms have a range of climate conditions they can tolerate, so heat waves can cause illness or death for many living things, including humans.
When I first heard of wombats I thought they were some type of gross maggot-like worm. It wasn’t until I did a little research that I realized how far off I was. Wombats are actually mammals, just like humans, and are further classified as marsupials. The three species of wombats, the northern hairy-nosed wombat, the southern hairy-nosed wombat, and the common wombat, are all nocturnal and native to Australia. They are definitely much more interesting than how I pictured them!
Life cycle
All marsupials give birth to young (called joeys) that are not fully developed yet. Their young then crawl into their parent’s pouch, which only the mother has in most species, and finish developing. Wombat babies usually stay in their mother’s pouch for about 5-6 months before they come out. However, young wombats sometimes crawl back into the pouch to nurse or escape danger after those first 5 months. When they are about 7 months old, the wombats can take care of themselves, but they might stay by their mother for over a year.
Wombats can reproduce once they are 2 years old, and usually breed from September to December. They live about 15 years on average, and up to 20 years in captivity.
Physical Features of All Wombats
Wombats have broad heads along with a short neck and small eyes and ears. Their short legs and claws are good for digging. Much like beavers, their two chisel-like front teeth constantly grow to make up for the wear and tear of eating tough plant material. Wombats are about 1.3 meters long (slightly over 4 ft) and weigh up to 36 kg (about 80 lbs). The female wombats have a pouch to hold their joeys, which is actually positioned backwards so that the opening of the pouch points towards their rear end. This is so dirt doesn’t get into the pouch when the mother is digging. Wombats have very poor eyesight, so they are heavily reliant on their hearing and incredible sense of smell. They can also run up to 40 km/hour (a little less than 25 miles per hour) for short distances. Most interestingly, wombats are the only known species to have cube-shaped waste (see this article on how and why they poop cubes: https://mashable.com/article/wombat-cube-poop-mystery-solved/)
Diet:
Wombats are herbivores that eat grasses (such as wallaby grass), shrubs, tree roots, bark, sedges (a grass-like plant), and forbes (a type of herbaceous plant). They can eat from 3-8 hours each night, traveling up to 3km (a little less than 2 miles) to look for food.
Behavior:
While many wombats share their burrows with others, they are very territorial with their feeding grounds. They mark out their feeding territories by scent trails and waste droppings at the boundaries. They might make short screeching sounds or give chase when another wombat invades their feeding grounds.
A northern hairy-nosed wombat: Northern hairy-nosed wombat - Australian Geographic
The Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat:
The northern hairy-nosed wombat is the world’s largest burrowing herbivore. They share their burrows with up to 10 other northern hairy-nosed wombats. They eat for about 2 hours per day during the summer and 6 hours in the winter, but they can go for many days without food when there are food shortages. The species population has declined and is now critically endangered. In 2015, the IUCN Red List assessed that there were only 80 mature individuals left, and that number has likely gone down in the years since. They used to be found in Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland, but are now only found in 2 protected sites.
A southern hairy-nosed wombat: Why we need to save the southern hairy-nosed wombat - Australian Geographic
The Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombat
Southern hairy-nosed wombats have grayish tan fur and white patches under their eyes. They share their burrows with several other wombats, just like northern-hairy nosed wombats.
Southern hairy-nosed wombats are found in isolated pockets in the southeast portion of West Australia, the Eyre and York Peninsulas, the Murray Mallee region in South Australia, and southwest New South Wales. They are also protected at Yookamurra and Dakalanta Wildlife Sanctuaries. The populations are highly fragmented, which means that different groups of wombats are separated. The IUCN Red List categorizes southern hairy-nosed wombats as near threatened, as there are only 60,000-130,000 left in the wild. The New South Wales Biodiversity Conservation Act of 2016 sets out a framework for biodiversity conservation, including the protection of southern hairy-nosed wombats (here is a link for an overview on the act: Overview of biodiversity reform | NSW Environment, Energy and Science, and this is a link to the actual document: https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-2016-063#statusinformation).
A Common Wombat: Common Wombat
The Common Wombat (AKA the bare-nosed wombat):
Common wombats are more solitary than the northern and southern hairy-nosed wombats and they do not share their burrows. Bare-nosed wombats are listed under least concern on the IUCN Red List, but the population is declining. They are now found in eastern New South Wales, Victoria, south-east South Australia, and Tasmania.
Importance of Wombats to Ecosystem:
Wombats help the ecosystems by digging. As they burrow, the turned soil helps moisture to sink into the ground which encourages plant life. In addition, some wombats once burrowed into an underground water pool during a drought, which helped other animals to get water.
Threats and Ways to Help
Habitat destruction might be the biggest threat to wombats because it means that the wombats have to compete with eastern grey kangaroos, rabbits, cattle, and many other animals for food. In addition, droughts and wildfires destroy their already lessening food supply. You can try to lessen the amount of goods you use, because a lot of land is taken up for buildings and resources that are used to produce those items. In addition, make sure to dispose of waste properly and try to recycle items.
The second most significant threat to wombats is sarcoptic mange. Mange is a skin disease caused by parasitic mites burrowing into the wombat’s skin. Symptoms of mange in wombats include crusty and itchy skin, fur loss, continuous thirst and hunger, and weakened vision and hearing. Their sense of smell is also affected sometimes. Wombats with mange need more food to keep up with their constant hunger, but their ability to find food is hurt by their failing senses of hearing and smell. This causes mange’s effects on wombats to be devastating. (Here is an article on a wombat that recovered from mange: ‘Significant suffering’: experts call for national plan to save wombats from mange)
Many wombats are also hunted by humans. Their burrows are a nuisance to farmers as they can damage fields and pastures, so some farmers hunt the wombats. Other people hunt wombats simply for sport. Dingoes (a type of wild dog), eagles, Tasmanian devils, and foxes also hunt wombats. Additionally, many wombats are killed by cars.
You can generally help by supporting petitions and other actions taken to protect wombats, especially when they are hunted for sport.
This is an interesting article on Emily Small raising wombats during the pandemic: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/raising-baby-wombats-during-pandemic-lockdown?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=Compass_20201212&rid=F8E85093CB2CEC2265FD38521514CEAD
This is an article on how bushfires are affecting marsupials, including wombats: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/australia-marsupials-struggling-after-fires?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=Compass_20201212&rid=F8E85093CB2CEC2265FD38521514CEAD
Sources:
Global warming is the increase in the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere, caused by the greater amount of greenhouse gases. The greenhouse effect is a process that traps heat from the sun using greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere (here is a video that explains the greenhouse effect in more detail: What Is the Greenhouse Effect?). Normally, the greenhouse effect keeps Earth at the right temperature for different ecosystems to thrive. However, with the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the greenhouse effect has intensified and the Earth is starting to become too warm.
Causes of increased greenhouse gases:
There are many different greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, ozone, and more. The increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is mostly due to human actions. We constantly burn tons of fossil fuels to produce energy, but it also releases greenhouse gases, mostly notably carbon dioxide. The website of the EPA (https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions) lists the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. and the percentage of America’s total emissions coming from each major source. In 2018, the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions are from fossil fuel combustion to fuel vehicles for traveling, producing electricity, the production of goods and services, heating buildings, and agriculture. Of course, there are other ways to produce electricity, travel, and produce goods/services, but burning fossil fuels is the most prevalent way. It is cheap, quick, and it produces a lot of energy. It is much easier to burn fossil fuels than produce energy using more environmentally-friendly ways.
Another leading cause of global warming is the rapid clearing of forests for the wood in order to produce goods like paper and furniture. Forests absorb a lot of the Earth’s carbon dioxide. Therefore, humans not only increase the amount of greenhouse gases, but we also curb the amount of greenhouse gases that trees can take out of the atmosphere.
Effects of Global Warming:
You may think that global warming isn’t important, or that you may be able to enjoy more beach days if it’s warmer out. But global warming is having serious effects on ecosystems worldwide, and the effects will keep increasing. Much of the released carbon dioxide, or CO₂, is absorbed by the ocean. The growing amounts of CO₂ in the atmosphere leads to more and more CO₂ dissolved in the ocean, which makes the water more acidic. This will have serious effects on marine animals. For example, coral animals need to bond calcium and carbonate ions together to build their coral skeletons. When the ocean water becomes more acidic, the carbonate ions bond with the extra hydrogen ions, and the coral animals have less carbonate ions to work with. This then affects the whole ocean, as coral reefs provide habitats for many different marine animals.
The acidification of the ocean is just one of many harmful effects caused by global warming. There are many other consequences of climate change. Polar bears that live in the Arctic need sea ice to hunt, and the increase in temperature melts the ice they rely on (see my polar bear article: Polar Bears). Melting sea ice also leads to rising sea levels, which has caused floods and other natural disasters. Other animals and plants respond to stimuli that are affected by climate change. For example, many plants start to bud flowers when the temperatures rise at the start of spring. Some plants are starting to bloom much earlier because of the rising temperatures. However, if they bloom before they usually do, pollinators such as bees might have not emerged yet. This means that they will not be able to reproduce.
Ecosystems worldwide are connected in many different ways. Factors such as a 1℃ increase in temperature can have huge consequences. One little change can ripple through the world, affecting an ecosystem that is on the other side of the globe. This is because of all the interactions that a single organism has with all the other biotic and abiotic factors in their environment. As such, it is nearly impossible to list all the ways that global warming can
throw off delicate balances within Earth’s biosphere.
Ways to help:
Humans need to drastically reduce carbon emissions, and quickly. Really, the only way to stop global warming is to have a net zero of carbon emissions. We have to limit our usage of fossil fuels and try to use more clean sources of energy. Try to do the little things that you hear about all the time, like trying to walk or bike more and turning off lights when you don’t need them. Using solar panels and harnessing other forms of renewable energy such as wind energy and hydro energy will also help. Since trees take in carbon dioxide, planting trees would lower the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. You should also try to decrease the amount of paper and other products you use that come from forests. You can see my article on easy ways to be green: Animal Awareness: 10 Easy Tips to be more Green!
Carbon offsetting is another way to help. It is basically where somebody emits greenhouse gases, but makes up for it somehow. They might plant trees to absorb the same amount of greenhouse gases that they produce, or pay someone to produce renewable energy to make up for the nonrenewable energy sources they used.
Agreements, Treaties, and Plans to Lower Greenhouse Gas Emissions
One of the most significant international attempts to limit greenhouse gas emissions is the Paris Agreement. It was ratified on November 4, 2016 with the goal of limiting climate change to an increase of 2℃, although the countries that agreed hope for an increase of 1.5℃. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has a site that details the Paris Agreement more precisely: The Paris Agreement | UNFCCC. While the Paris Agreement was a start, the actions that countries have taken are still not nearly enough to meet the goal of a 2℃ change in global warming. Additionally, the U.S. pulled out of the Paris Agreement in 2017, and the United States is the second largest carbon emitter.
The Green New Deal is a report that is about what the U.S. has to do to combat climate change quickly. It has many goals, including the U.S. having zero greenhouse gas emissions. However, there are many issues that come with taking action to reach that goal. For one, the amount of fossil fuels that are burned would have to be lowered, which means that some people working in power plants might lose their job as America switches to clean energy sources. There are many other problems too. This video gives an in-depth explanation of the Green New Deal: The Green New Deal, explained. Here is an article that also talks about the Green New Deal: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/climate/green-new-deal-questions-answers.html
The president elect, Joe Biden, says he will execute his Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Plan to address climate change issues. According to Biden, constructing infrastructure, creating jobs, and building a clean energy ecosystem are all parts of his plan.
Here is a fun, interactive site for kids that teaches them about greenhouse gases: Meet the Greenhouse Gases!
And here is an interesting proposal on how to help combat climate change: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/climate/climate-change-geoengineering.html?referringSource=articleShare
Sources:
https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement
Reece, Jane B. Campbell Biology Concepts & Connections. Eighth ed., Pearson Education, 2009.
General Description:
Elephants are large, herbivorous mammals. They are very intelligent animals. They can feel emotions such as compassion, grief, and selflessness; they can also imitate others, use tools, and they display self awareness. Elephants are crepuscular, which means that they are mostly active during dawn and dusk, and sleep during the day. They have large bodies, with big ears, a trunk, and some have tusks. They use their trunks to pick up objects, communicate with sounds, suck up water to drink or give themselves trunk showers, and more. Elephants with tusks use them to protect themselves and some males use their tusks to fight. They can also use their tusks to collect food, lift and move objects, and strip the bark off of trees. Elephants are actually left or right tusked, sort of like how humans are right or left handed. They don’t sleep a lot, as they spend up to 18 hours eating. They can eat up to 300 lbs of roots, grass, fruit, bark, and other plant matter in one day, and for this reason they need a lot of space to live.
Each elephant herd is led by a matriarch that is typically the biggest and oldest female in the herd. Males leave the herd when they reach puberty, and either live alone or with a small group of other males. After they leave, they don’t really interact with the herd except to mate. Female elephants have one calf every 4-5 years, and they have a 22 month pregnancy. The whole herd of related females help each other care for calves.
African Elephant:
There are two main species of elephants: African elephants and Asian elephants, each of which are further divided into subspecies.The two major subspecies of African elephants are the African forest elephants and the African savanna elephants (also known as the African Bush elephant). African elephants can live up to 70 years. They are 8.2 to 13 feet tall, and weigh between 2.5 and 7 tons. Calves weigh about 200 lbs and stand up to 3 feet tall. African elephants are typically larger than Asian elephants, and have larger ears. Both male and females have tusks that continuously grow. Their trunk is essentially a long nose, containing 40,000 muscles. The trunk has two features on the end that act like fingers to help them pick up objects.
African elephants are a keystone species for many reasons. A keystone species is a species of animal that is vitally important to their ecosystem. African elephants can use their tusks to dig holes in the ground for water during the dry season, which creates watering holes that other animals can use. The seeds in their waste helps plants to spread, and their waste also provides a habitat for dung beetles. The African forest elephants eat so many plants that they create pathways that other animals can use. African savannah elephants also uproot trees and eat saplings, which creates open landscape for animals that live on plains.
Asian Elephants:
Asian elephants have slight differences from African elephants. They can live up to 60 years. They are 6.6 to 9.8 feet tall, and weigh between 2.25 and 9.8 ft. Asian elephants have smaller, rounder ears than African elephants, and they live throughout Southeast Asia.They also only have one finger-like feature on their trunk. In addition, only some male Asian elephants have tusks.
Threats to Elephants:
Human activities pose a great threat to elephants. The IUCN Red List states that African elephants are vulnerable, as there are about 400,000 African elephants left in the world. This might seem like a lot, but it really isn't. After all, the human population is well over 7 billion, and it’s still growing. It has also been estimated that there were 26 million African elephants before European colonization in Africa. One of the biggest threats to African elephants is poaching, as many are killed for their ivory tusks. While the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) banned ivory trade internationally in 1989, poaching still continues since tusks are illegally traded. A census from 2016 showed a 8% elephant decline per year, which is about 27,000 elephants. Part of the problem is the long time it takes elephants to reproduce. A second threat to elephants is habitat loss. Elephants need a lot of space to support the enormous amounts of food they eat. As elephants lose more and more habitat, they need to go closer to humans in order to find enough food. Sometimes they have to cross human development in order to obtain food due to fragmentation (when a habitat is divided into sections by human development and/or settlement.)
Asian elephants are even more threatened than African elephants. The IUCN Red List states that Asian elephants are endangered. The Asian elephant population has declined by about 50% over the last 75 years! There are only about 20,000-40,000 Asian elephants left in the wild. They are less threatened than African elephants by poaching since many don’t have tusks, but they are greatly threatened by habitat loss. Some people also hunt them to trade elephant skin.
Elephants in Captivity:
About ⅓ of Asian elephants are in captivity, where they live in terrible conditions. So many elephants are shown off to make money from tourism, and this leads to many trafficked young calves. In 2012, Thailand limited the smuggling of Asian elephants, but it is still a huge problem. Elephants are trained to give shows, rides, and to interact face-to-face with tourists. They are usually tamed with fear. For example, many trainers use bullhooks, which is a wooden stick with a sharp metal hook on one end. They introduce phajaan, which is the process of breaking an elephant’s spirit to tame them. Elephants that need to be tamed are hit with a bullhook, bound with ropes, confined to small spaces, or starved. Captive elephants in Thailand are abused with isolation, malnutrition, and are sometimes physically abused (here is a video that talks about elephant captivity: Inside the Dark World of Captive Wildlife Tourism | National Geographic). There aren’t many protections for captive elephants. Many times, elephant keepers tell tourists that the elephants are treated well, when they might be bound with spiked chains the whole day. It is truly horrifying how some tourism places treat elephants, along with other animals (see my article “The Debate on Zoos: Pros and Cons” for more information on zoos).
Efforts to help save elephants:
There are two ways to limit poaching: prevent poachers from killing elephants and limiting the demand for ivory so poachers don’t have a motive to kill elephants. For the first method, many organizations have been trying to develop technology to identify and stop poachers in national parks and other protected areas (here is a link to an article about WWF’s efforts to use tech to stop poaching: WWF develops a new technology to stop poachers in their tracks). A problem with this is that it is difficult to keep such a system running for a long time, and even more difficult to stop poaching outside of national parks. It will also be a struggle to implement systems like this into other national parks that have poaching problems. However, this is a good start and I’m sure that more progress will be made.
As for the second way of limiting poaching, there are a few ideas as to how to limit the demand for ivory. In 2015, China instituted a “near complete” ban on domestic ivory trade, which led to a fall in the demand for ivory. Similar bans could have a profound effect.
In addition, many groups campaign for the better treatment of elephants in captivity. A few places treat elephants well, and the elephants are not forced to interact with humans. Hopefully, if enough people support movements to help elephants in captivity, more zoos and elephant tourism places will start to treat elephants humanely.
How you can help:
Support any petitions or movements you hear about to help elephants in captivity
Be informed: many tourists view elephants and believe their keepers/trainers when they say that the elephants are treated well. Many believe this, and don’t realize that the elephants they are so excited to see are being forced to interact with them.
Don’t buy ivory products, which increases the demand for ivory
Donate to causes that are trying to limit poaching and the bad treatment of elephants in captivity
Current Events:
Some elephants are actually evolving to have no tusks. This, of course, allows them a better chance of survival as poachers don’t have a reason to kill them for ivory. Here are two articles with more information:
Under poaching pressure, elephants are evolving to lose their tusks
African elephants are evolving without tusks because of poaching
Hundreds of elephants in Botswana have died suddenly, and nobody knows why. Here are two links for more information. The first one details the problem, and the second talks more about the current information scientists have collected.
Sources:
Cetaceans is a family of large marine mammals, consisting of whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Whales are huge animals that are viewed as living marvels. But other than their large size, they are actually similar to humans in several ways. Whales are warm-blooded mammals with a thick, insulative layer of blubber, or fat. Just like humans, whales drink their mother’s milk during their childhood. Whales can also make friends, grieve, and feel many other emotions.
There are two main groupings of cetaceans: mysticetes and odontocetes. Mysticetes are whales that have baleen, or bristle-like formations in their mouths that strain the food from the water. Baleen is made up of proteins, the same proteins of which fingernails and hair is formed from. The color, size, and number of baleen plates is unique to each species. They mostly eat plankton, krill, and small fish. There are three types of mysticetes, skimmers, gulpers, and suckers, classified by how they obtain food. Skimmers swim through patches of plankton or other sustenances with open mouths, letting their baleen catch and trap the food. Gulpers have pleats that fill up with water before pushing it through their baleen to capture food in the water. Suckers, as their name implies, suck amphipods (a type of crustacean) from the bottom of the ocean. They also suck up tons of mod and water along with the food, so they force the mixture through their baleen to strain out the amphipods.
Odontocetes is the other main group of cetaceans, containing all whales that have teeth. Dolphins and porpoises are also included in the odontocetes category. Toothed whales often eat larger fish, squid, octopus, and more. Even though they eat much bigger prey, odontocetes are usually smaller than mysticetes. However, the toothed whales don’t use their teeth for chewing. They often swallow their food whole, or in big pieces. The tusk of a narwhal is actually one giant tooth! Odontocetes commonly use echolocation to find prey. Echolocation is the way some animals locate objects or other organisms by listening to echoes, or reflected sounds.
The blue whale is a well-known mysticete, famous for being the biggest creature to live on Earth ever. They can grow up to 98ft long and weigh up to 200 tons. Imagine, most humans aren’t even 6 feet tall! And humans don’t just eat small foods like krill. Blue whales from the southern hemisphere are usually larger than those from the northern hemisphere, and females tend to be bigger than males. Newborns can be 23ft long, and up to 3 tons. During the first 6-7 months, the babies drink over a 100 gallons of their mother’s fatty milk every day. Their diet of milk leads to babies putting on 250lbs of weight every day! After those first 6-7 months, the whales have gotten twice as long and don’t need their mother’s milk anymore. Blue whales typically stay with their mothers for about the first year of their life, and fully mature at 5-10 years. Like humans, they live for about 80 years.
Many types of whales are endangered because of commercial whaling, which is hunting whales to sell products such as meat, oil, and fats. For example, the heads of sperm whales contain large amounts of spermaceti, a type of oil. This oil is valuable as lamp fuel, and can be used to make other products like creams. Many sperm whales were killed for the oil. Now, new threats endanger whales, such as plastic pollution. Abandoned or lost fishing nets are a large portion of the plastic pollution in oceans worldwide. Whales and many other marine animals often get tangled in fishing nets in the ocean, and are injured or killed as the nets restrict their movement. Some fishermen simply cut their fishing nets when an animal gets tangled in it, leaving them to die. You can help the whales and other marine animals by speaking against the harm that humans perpetrate. We also need to start trying to adapt our technology to lessen its impact on the environment. Some companies are trying to develop biodegradable nets, or nets that have technology that allow fishermen to track them (here is an article on a more environmentally-friendly net: http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/11/19/biodegradable-gps-tagged-fishing-net-could-help-save-dolphins-and-whales). But a big problem for producing these products is that not many people buy them, as they rather buy products that are cheaper but aren’t environmentally-friendly. You can also help out by supporting laws and petitions that would benefit whales, and donate to whale charities.
There are over 90 species of cetaceans. Here are some examples.
For some reason, there have been some major whale strandings occurring. Hundreds have already died. This is a devastating blow, especially since some whale populations have already declined drastically. Here are some links to articles where you can get more information:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/22/australia/tasmania-pilot-whale-stranding-intl-hnk-scli/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/23/australia/tasmania-whale-stranding-new-pod-intl-hnk-scli/index.html
To help out the whales, you can donate to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation through this link: https://adopt-us.whales.org/shop/donate-today/
Sources:
