The Current - Why marine life is making a comeback

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

From humpback whales to bottlenose dolphins, there’s been an uptick in sightings of marine life around the world. Biologists and marine ecologists say it's part of a resurgence of life in the oceans, the result of decades of global conservation efforts.

Hi there, I'm Gavin Crawford. I'm a writer, an actor, and a comedian, and for the last eight or nine years I have been navigating life with my mother's increasing dementia. Has it been sad? Yeah. Has it been funny? Also, yeah. That's what my podcast series Let's Not Be Kiddin' is about. It's the true story of my life as a comedian, my mom, and dementia. Let's not be kidding. With me, Gavin Crawford.

Available now. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. It's hard not to notice a humpback whale when you see one. Oh my God! What a spectacular view for us. It's off the coast of Cornwall in England, a humpback whale breaching out of the water. Wildlife photographer Dan Abbott caught some of the show on video with his drone.

There's something really special about seeing that species here in the UK and especially in more recent years when there's been much more sightings around the coastline. Those increased sightings are not just for humpback whales, there are also greater numbers of bottlenose dolphins and minke whales. Here in Canada you might remember there was that rare sighting of an orca pod in the heart of Vancouver this fall. All stations, all stations, all stations. There are approximately four orca whales between bridges. Everybody's shipped into neutral. Right in front of us.

Oh my goodness. Biologists and marine ecologists say that this is part of a resurgence in marine life, the result of decades of global conservation efforts. Andrew Trites is the director of the University of British Columbia's Marine Mammal Research Unit and Boris Warham is a biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax. Good morning to you both. Good morning.

Morning. This is a good news story, which we could use these days. Andrew, you and I spoke in November about that orca pod in, in Vancouver's Falls Creek. Just for people who don't know that story, just quickly remind us what happened. Well, there were, there were individuals taking the ferry,

the small little passenger ferry, and as they were going along, three, actually four orcas, the mammal eating form appeared. It was a mother and three of her offspring, and they were in essentially looking for a meal and exploring parts of the city that we haven't seen them before. What did that tell you about the strength of that population and the resurgence of that population,

particularly in the Salish Sea over the last 40 years? Well, we're seeing more and more of these sorts of encounters, and traditionally we thought of the urban wildlife of Vancouver being birds and raccoons. But now we can count humpback whales, killer whales, gray whales, seal, sea lions. Um, literally we're finding that individuals

living around the Salish Sea, so that includes Victoria, Vancouver, and Seattle. It's our Serengeti. Um, we're experiencing wildlife in a way that people have not seen it for over a century. Boris, let's go from west to east. You're in Halifax and you're seeing some of the species come back in a big way, right at your doorstep, right? Exactly. What are you seeing? I just live seven minutes from the studio we're in sitting right now by the ocean.

And just this morning, I saw a flock of Gilimots and a bald eagle flew across and some seals and that's a common occurrence in the summer. We see bluefin tuna, one of the fastest fish in the world, one of the largest ones as well, also one of the most valuable, almost hunted to extinction 15 years ago. We actually published on that at the time and now I see them jump right off my doorstep in the summer. And it's incredible. It's exactly like Andrew said on this coast as well. There's a rewilding going on

that is unprecedented in my lifetime. And I think it's a good sign for things to come if we keep on track. You see bluefin tuna jumping right in front of you. Isn't that amazing? They're like torpedoes made into fish and they're just so fast and they swim with such ease. I also seen them diving off here as well.

When you see them underwater, it's just otherworldly mad. It's like, you know, like your previous scholar was talking about noticing rabbit tracks and these kinds of things inspiring awe. In the ocean, for me personally, it's a whole other ballgame because the ocean is just this pure life force and every drop is filled with life and when we give it half a chance as we now do, the ocean does bounce back and has this incredibly possibility of recovery and we're seeing some of that happening. Are you surprised by that?

In 2006, you were talking about the grim state in some ways of the ocean. And you said that you had a sinking feeling that the ocean was permanently damaged and that there's nothing you could do about it. Yes. I still have that sinking feeling because the ocean is damaged.

I would take out the permanently because we do see now that where we take in concerted action to bring things back and where we're mindful about what we take and where we're mindful about how much we dump into the ocean of our wastes and be correct our actions, we do see recovery. Often, this was the surprise to me and I think to many others how quickly that can happen once we change our ways. So as I said, bluefin tuna 15 years ago, they were on their way to extinction.

And a lot of people were ringing alarm bells about that. They were to be listed under an international convention for species that are so endangered you can't even trade them. And that caused the relevant bodies that regulate the fishery for these species to really wake up and say, we've got to do something. And they did. And the fish bounced back and now they're in the North Sea, they're here, they're swimming up to Iceland, they're in Norway, they're all across the Mediterranean and have increased at least four to five fold since that time, which is incredible for a large species like

that. Another example that you gave was, I mean, when it comes to coral reefs, we talk a lot about coral bleaching and the death of beautiful coral reefs around the world. You looked at the Marshall Islands, which, I mean, it was a nuclear test site, actually bombed, you know, beyond recognition. Unbelievable. But things are happening there. Yeah, no, it's one of the richest sites in the Pacific now, particularly for that reason that it was so polluted by radiation that people were not allowed to go there for decades.

And that's the ticket, right? That's what brings life back when we're not interfering with it. And even in a place like this that has been damaged so egregiously, we do see that recovery. We see some of the most polluted places in the world, once they're being cleaned up, like the North Sea, for example, or the Baltic Sea, where I grew up, coming back in some ways. I will say, Matt, there is still a very long way to go, and there is a lot of damage out there.

Here in Canada, the basis of the food chain that a lot of these species were talking about, humpback whales and bluefin tuna and others rely on. The small fish that everybody feeds on are in trouble and we need to do more to rebuild them. But overall, we know what to do and we know what's working. Andrew, tell us a bit more about what's working. Why are we seeing this resurgence of marine life here but also in other parts of the world. I think one of the big changes was the protection

of marine mammals in many parts of the world. And so in Canada and the United States, starting in the 70s, we stopped culling and removing seals, for example. Whaling was stopped in the 60s. And since then we've seen this resurgence of marine mammals. And it was taken some 40 to 60 years in some cases to recover.

But we've seen, for example, humpback whales have returned to the Salish Sea. They were gone for a hundred years after the last one was taken. We're now seeing killer whales in the Salish Sea every single day, numbers have stabilized. And there's a parallel here with the rewilding

of terrestrial ecosystems, where it was seen that removing large predators such as beavers, wolves, bears, lions, led to declines of biodiversity, stability, and productivity. And once you put these predators back in, we see then a resurgence. And I think we're seeing the same things here in Canada as we're seeing marine mammals return. These large predators are increasing the biodiversity, making ecosystems more productive and stable in the long term. Now at the same time, while this can be looked as being a good thing, it's also showing a change where the fisheries that were supported,

perhaps in the absence of these marine mammals, need to adapt. But overall, it's a very good sign for the long-term health of our ecosystems. And we're seeing these sorts of changes off of California, Hawaii, other places in the world, including the North Sea as well. How do you keep that momentum going? I think it's a momentum that's a bit hard to turn back. We've seen a generational change in stewardship of our oceans. In some respects, perhaps the marine mammals get a bit more attention because they're more visible. People relate more easily to mammals, perhaps the marine mammals get a bit more attention because they're more visible. People relate more easily to mammals, perhaps to fish. But by allowing

ecosystems to reestablish natural balance, I see that as one of the long-term solutions, along with addressing the challenges that Boris has brought up in terms of pollution, climate change, overfishing. But overall, I see a real change in attitude and we're not completely there yet, but we're moving in the right direction. Boris, you said that Canada is an ocean superpower, that we are an ocean people.

If that's the case, what is it that this country can do to keep the foot on the accelerator and keep the momentum moving forward? Well, I think the first step is to establish large protected zones as we've committed to, along with other countries around the world. I think most people don't realize that we now have a global blueprint for bringing nature back. It's called the Global Biodiversity Framework.

It was ratified actually in Montreal, in this country, two years ago. And it has all of these elements that we need to do to make those successes that we saw for Humpback whales and for bluefin tuna, make them more general. And Canada is part of this and protecting 30% of our ocean is a first step. Addressing overfishing is another one. We still have some work to do on that front and then addressing pollution and first and foremost climate change because climate change, what I'm really concerned about is that the ability of the ocean to bounce back,

the ability to recover, that resilience is tied to the current climate. In a new climate, this may look very differently and we're not really prepared for that. And so I think, I mean, we have to do it for our own sake as well, but also for the ocean's sake. Andrew, we're just about out of time, but are you at all surprised by this? Again, a lot of the news around biodiversity more broadly can be pretty grim. That we have made mistakes and that those mistakes may not be reversible. And yet the suggestion here is that if we get out of the way, perhaps the ocean will, at the

very least, recover or show some strength. Are you at all surprised by that? Um, I'm not surprised. I guess I'm very encouraged by it. And I think one of the lessons that we're beginning to learn here on the West coast is that if we do get out of the way, nature can heal to learn here on the West Coast is that if we do get out of the way, nature can heal itself. Nature can take care of itself. And I think what people

are observing here along the shorelines of Vancouver and around the Salish Sea is proof of that. Boris, just very briefly, we were talking earlier about that idea that when you see those rabbit tracks in the snow, something happens to you. When you see those tune leaping off the shore or the birds that you saw this morning, I mean, how do you feel? What does it do to you? Oh, it literally brings tears to my eyes, Matt, and almost every time. Because as you said, 20 years ago, I did not believe that we could be there today. But we are, and we're moving in the right direction. and that just fills me with intense joy and gratitude that as a people we can do this and I just really

hope we can stay on track. This is a good story. I'm glad to share it with our audience. Thank you both for being here. Thank you, Matthew. Thank you. Andrew Trites is director of UBC's Marine Mammal Research Unit. Boris Worm is a biologist at Dalhousie University. He was in our studio in Halifax.

For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.