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Whales Catch Posh Spice Disease!
No, they haven't started wearing big sunglasses and Prada handbags. But they have started to look as skinny as Posh Spice.
The Pacific Grey whale had been hunted to almost extinction but its numbers have been increasing. However, marine observers have spotted that 10% of these beautiful whales are so skinny that their shoulders blades stick out. This might be OK on Posh, but its a terrible sight on a whale because whales are supposed to be covered in thick blubber to keep them going on long migrations (regular journeys across the oceans). Stephen Palumbi, a marine biologist at Stanford University thinks that the whales are skinny because of global warming. The Pacific Grey whale is a baleen whale - it eats crustateon (tiny sea animals) which it sieves through it's mouth. These crustateon live in the arctic waters, but with the sea temperatures rising because of global warming, there will not be enough crustation around to live to keep the baleen whales alive. So we could have done all this work to keep our whales from being eaten, only to have them starve to death in our seas. Other baleen whales are: Southern Right Whales, Minke Whales, Humpback Whales and Blue Whale. WHAT CAN YOU DO? 1. Make sure you get your parents to reduce the amount of electricity and petrol you use. 2. Donate your pocket money from one week to Greenpeace...they do brilliant work for our environment. 3. Write to politicians and tell them they need to invest heavily...and NOW in solar power. Tell them it will save our planet, the creatures which live on it...and us! 'Mystery of the skinny whales'; SMH Images: Grey whale: victorialodging.com Grey whale: foe.co.uk |