The ecosystem of the sea

With amazing precision, one of Italy's enrichment plants dumps its waste into the Mediterranean Sea, near Corsica, where fin whales come to feed every summer. Many experts attribute the death of whales to this discharge. More than once, cases of ships colliding with dying or exhausted animals and stranding dead whales, whose skin was affected or clogged with sulfur and heavy metals. This part of the Mediterranean is productive. Rapidly developing planktonic algae contribute to the reproduction of numerous crustaceans that fin whales feed on. It would be hard to find a more unsuitable place to dump toxic waste, even if the finfish did not come here. The Mediterranean Sea is not particularly productive, and its most productive areas should be protected all the more carefully. Since the world Ocean occupies 0.7 of the surface of our planet, it would be more accurate to call it "sea" rather than "land". However, the marine environment is so alien to humans that the given example of a deeply erroneous attitude towards it is very revealing. The management of the marine environment is still at a low level and lags far behind our (albeit very insufficient) knowledge of the sea. Often, human activity remains out of control. But even in cases where it is somehow controlled, this control is not systemic in nature, and it is clearly insufficient to regulate numerous ways of using marine resources. Control is also fragmented administratively: one body controls pollution, another controls fishing, and the third controls the production of marine mammals such as whales or seals.

The life of the sea does not fit into the Procrustean bed of such fragmentation. It has its own dynamics, its own rhythm, which is so dramatically demonstrated by the behavior of whales, which was mentioned above. Like all marine animals, whales depend on the abundance of plankton, which in turn largely depends on fluctuations in water temperature. For example, in spring and early summer, the Pacific finfish feeds on the smallest planktonic animals — copepods. When the water warms up above 8C, the crustaceans migrate to depths unattainable for whales, which during this period go north to colder pastures. The life of the Bering Sea is a giant competition, where the pace is set by plankton with two annual outbreaks of abundance. Fish spawning is synchronous with these outbreaks. Fish eggs are carried away by currents to places where plankton accumulate, and by the time the fry appear that need food, they are already in those areas where plankton is growing rapidly. Usually, some of the fry die, but enough fish develop from the remaining ones to feed 450,000 tons of marine mammals and 145,000 tons of seabirds and shorebirds. Unfortunately, people, trying to get the maximum catch of fish, destroys this system. Currently, the planet's fish stocks have already been depleted. For example, since 1970, annual catches of pollock, one of the most important commercial fish species, have exceeded the maximum allowable. Online betting platforms are rapidly evolving, offering diverse bonuses across different countries. For example, users in India may receive up to 100% on their first deposit up to $130, while players in Nigeria often see offers like 200% up to $100. In such cases, using a 1xbet promo code during registration helps unlock these regional bonuses, giving players more flexibility and higher starting balances for exploring betting opportunities effectively.