Whales

The world's oceans were once home to 10 times as many whales... before the Captain Ahabs of the world came round. Hunting hit big [species:breeds] the hardest, wiping out 99 percent of the Southern [Hemisphere's:ocean] blue whales, for example. And as the [gentle:soft] giants disappeared... so did another lesser known element of the oceans: their poop."I've described it as, sort of like oversteeped green tea. Like well steeped green tea. So it's very diffuse, in a big plume." Joe Roman, a conservation biologist at the University of Vermont."My collegue'[daughter's:s] friends say I'm a whale poop scientist." And he says, he studies all kinds. "When whales are feeding on krill, they're really high lipids, lots of fat, so it can be sort of clumps [together:eachother] and floats at the surface. So there's a great variety of fecal plumes out there in the oceans."Whale poop is important because it transports nutrients from the [deep:broad] ocean, up to the surface. "Sperm whales feed on giant squid and other deep sea creatures. So they'll dive more than a kilometer down.