Humans aren’t the only ones that can tan and get sunburn. Over the last years, scientists have made a study showing that whales can suffer from the sun too. In the past we have been able to see whales getting blisters, and now it has come to a more severe point. At first, we were uncertain of what caused these changes on the whale’s skins. Professor Edel O’Toole says “As we would expect to see in humans, the whale species that spent more 'time in the sun' suffered greater sun damage. We predict that whales will experience more severe sun damage if ultraviolet radiation continues to increase." Laura Martinez-Levasseur says "Whales need to come to the surface to breathe air, to socialize and to feed their young, meaning that they are frequently exposed to the full force of the sun.” Studies have also shown that the paler-skinned blue whales skin’s damage is greater compared to the darker-skinned fin whales. This is another unpredicted effect of global warming.
When I first read this article I thought “wow, whales can tan!” I hadn’t really understood it to be a problem. Now, I understand this is a serious issue. If global warming keeps increasing this may become a problem for all the light-skinned whales in our oceans. Considering that a great deal of whale species already are endangered because of whale hunting, and that whales need quite a lot of food to survive, this might become fatal for some whale species. However, something that popped into my head as I was reading this article was that we have sunscreen to protect us from the sun. Maybe scientists could find some sort of waterproof lotion and smear it all over the whale’s backs, and help reduce the effects of the sunburn. Of course, it would probably be hard to actually put the whale sunscreen on the whales. Maybe we could be able to do it with submarines, or by capturing them for like 2 minutes, smearing the lotion over their back, and then setting them free again. This might help reduce whale skin cancer and sunburns.
Haha - while I was reading your article, I had the same thought - "Why don't we invent some sort sunscreen for the whales?" I agree with you that it would be a good idea to do that, but I also agree with the fact that it would be hard to get the sunscreen on the whales. If we snuck up to them in submarines, we might frighten them into injuring themselves, or WE might accidentally injure them ourselves. It would also be hard to keep track of the whales, which ones had had sunscreen, which ones needed second doses, and which ones didn't have any sunscreen on at all. It would probably be really expensive to keep track and make all those trips to sea to put sunscreen on whales, and I doubt anyone will pay that much...I can't think of any good solution.
ReplyDeleteGood article - I think you did a really good job of paraphrasing it!
lol sunscreen for whales! I loved your article it was really well written!
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