While we tend to exert much of our energies trying to reduce CO2 emissions and improve air quality, the recent catastrophic events in the Gulf of Mexico have made many people turn their attention to just what we’re doing to our seas. While the BP disaster is of course a landmark event in terms of environmental impacts a recent story reveals that we’ve got other serious issues that are more historic in nature. Nor are these caused by a deep water oil rig explosion and pipeline rupture but by our overall (collective) continued negligence and tendencies to use the ocean as the watery waste bin for things that simply should never meet the ocean.

Ocean Alliance are one of the world’s foremost research organizations focusing on whales and other ocean life relating particularly to toxicology, behavior, bioacoustics, and genetics. They then partner with scientific groups to advise educators and policy makers on wise stewardship of the oceans to: reduce pollution, prevent the collapse of marine mammal populations, maintain human access to fish and other sea life, and promote ocean and human health. With that agenda their latest reports are a source of great concern.

Based on the scientific study of the tissue samples from nearly 1,000 sperm whales, scientists  discovered extremely high levels of toxic and heavy metals which can potentially impact the health of millions of people who eat seafood. The recent report confirmed high levels of cadmium, aluminum, chromium, lead, silver, mercury and titanium in the mammals. The collected samples cover a five year span of studies. The news isn’t something that is tempered by regional bias either as the team announced the whales sampled came for every corner of the seven seas. Whales can travel on voyages of up to 87,000 miles. Biologist Roger Payne, founder and president of Ocean Alliance:

“The entire ocean life is just loaded with a series of contaminants, most of which have been released by human beings. These contaminants, I think, are threatening the human food supply. They certainly are threatening the whales and the other animals that live in the ocean.”

The bottom line he warns is that the metals may contaminate fish, which are a primary source of animal protein for 1 billion people – 15% of the earth’s population. He added:

“You could make a fairly tight argument to say that it is the single greatest health threat that has ever faced the human species. I suspect this will shorten lives, if it turns out that this is what’s going on,”

Details of the report will be shared with the 88 member nations of the International Whaling Commission and the commission requested to conduct further research. The full findings of the Ocean Alliance report have been published and make for some sobering reading – the link to the PDF is here.