The dolphins living in Shark Bay aren’t disappearing for the reasons one might imagine.
Marine life along the western Australian shoreline known as Shark Bay have literally been feeling the heat and it appears to be the result of global warming. The survival rate of certain dolphin groups has reportedly dropped by 12% since 2011, according to a study published by the biweekly science journal Current Biology.
Trouble started bubbling about eight years ago, when a heatwave raised water temperatures 4 degrees above their annual average temperature, which took a toll on the ecosystem.
The warming conditions particularly affected the dolphin population, according to the 27-year-old journal, which reported “Catastrophic losses of habitat-forming sea grass meadows followed (the climate change), along with mass mortalities of invertebrate and fish communities.”
Michael Krutzen, a principal investigator at Shark Bay Dolphin Research Alliance and professor of evolutionary anthropology at Zurich University, co-authored the study. He found no clear indication the problem has corrected itself.
“Survival and reproduction were still lower, so these short term effects have long-term consequences on marine megafauna,” Krutzen wrote.
He started studying the Australian coast line in 2007 and calls it “serendipity” that he was focusing on this ecosystem when the changes took hold four years later.
Shark Bay spans 5,438,550 acres and houses approximately 2,000 dolphins and 820 species of fish. Once the seagrass was affected, a domino effect led to the deterioration of the sealife depending on it.
Independent research by the Government of Western Australia Department of Fisheries stated that coastal waters experienced a 5 degree Celsius increase in 2011.
Krutzen blames global warming for the spike in ocean temperature. He says the only way to stop global warming is by stopping the use of fossil fuels.
