How To Protect The Ocean

A blue whale can swallow a volume of water bigger than its own body in a single gulp. That move, called lunge feeding, is one of the most extreme feats in the animal kingdom, and it only pays off when krill is packed into thick, dense swarms. In a thin patch, a blue whale gets back about six times the energy it spent. In a dense swarm, it gets back more than 200 times.

In this first episode of the Age of Giants series, Andrew breaks down how rorqual whales feed, then follows the krill. In 2025, the Antarctic krill fishery hit its 620,000 tonne precautionary limit for the first time and closed months early, with catches concentrated in the same Antarctic Peninsula waters where whales feed. Andrew also explains the "krill paradox": scientists now know whales eat about three times more than older estimates, and their iron-rich poop fertilizes the plankton that krill depend on. Whales help grow the very swarms they eat.

The episode closes on South Georgia, where whalers killed 42,698 blue whales and surveys recorded one sighting in twenty years. In 2020, researchers counted 58 blue whale sightings in three weeks. Andrew shares one simple action you can take today to keep more krill in the ocean for whales.

Takeaways

• Rorqual whales (blue, fin, humpback) feed by lunging, expanding pleated throats to engulf huge volumes of water and prey.
• A single blue whale lunge costs roughly 3,000 to 8,000 kilojoules, so lunge feeding only works on dense krill swarms.
• A feeding blue whale in the eastern North Pacific can eat about 16 tonnes of krill a day.
• The Antarctic krill fishery reached its 620,000 tonne trigger level for the first time in 2025 and closed early.
• Whales recycle iron that fuels plankton growth; Southern Ocean whales recycle about one tenth of the iron they did before whaling.
• Blue whales are returning to South Georgia after being hunted out locally, about 50 years after whaling ended there.
• Action: skip krill oil and choose an algae-based omega-3 supplement.

Support Independent Podcasts: https://www.speakupforblue.com/patreon

Need help with your ocean non-profit, company, or project? Get the help you need with Pisces Oceans Inc.: https://www.piscesoceans.ca Connect with Speak Up For Blue Website: https://bit.ly/3fOF3Wf Instagram: https://bit.ly/3rIaJSG TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@speakupforblue Twitter: https://bit.ly/3rHZxpc YouTube: www.speakupforblue.com/youtube

What happens to the heart of the largest animal on Earth when it charges into a swarm of krill? Dr. Ashley Blawas, a postdoctoral scholar in Jeremy Goldbogen's lab at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station, joins Andrew to unpack new research published in PNAS that measured the heart rates of lunge-feeding blue whales and humpback whales using suction-cup ECG tags.

Ashley explains the three phases of lunge feeding (accelerate, engulf, filter) and why these giants behave a lot like human sprinters. Their heart rates stay high after each lunge, then gradually recover while they glide and filter, refuelling muscles for the next burst. She also shares how body size gives big whales a heart rate range of roughly sevenfold, compared with about threefold in humans, which may be one of the keys to life at the largest scale.

Along the way, Ashley tells the story of how beach vacations in North Carolina and a biomedical engineering degree at Duke led her to whale physiology, how COVID pushed her PhD into molecular research, and where this work is heading next. Think minke whales, North Atlantic right whales, and one day a "smartwatch" that could help track whale health over time.

Takeaways

• Lunge feeding has three phases: acceleration (about 4 m/s), engulfment (a few seconds), and filtering (up to 1 to 1.5 minutes in the largest blue whales).
• Blue and humpback whale heart rates mimic human sprinters, staying elevated after a lunge and recovering gradually.
• That elevated heart rate likely helps oxygenated blood restore energy stores between lunges.
• Big whales access a heart rate scope of roughly 5 to 35 bpm, about sevenfold, versus about threefold in humans.
• Data came from nine tag records on blue and humpback whales across multiple field seasons.
• Tags attach with suction cups from a roughly 6 m carbon fibre pole and record for about 12 to 36 hours.
• Lunge feeding only pays off when prey patches are dense, which makes finding those patches a survival issue.
• Future work targets minke whales, ram-feeding right whales, and long-term health indicators like heart rate variability.

Links for Ashley's Work: The PNAS paper discussed in the episode: Sprint-like cardiac dynamics support repeated acrobatic lunges in foraging rorqual whales Ashley's website: ashleyblawas.com Goldbogen Lab: goldbogen.stanford.edu and whales.stanford.edu

Support Independent Podcasts: https://www.speakupforblue.com/patreon

Need help with your ocean non-profit, company, or project? Get the help you need with Pisces Oceans Inc.: https://www.piscesoceans.ca Connect with Speak Up For Blue Website: https://bit.ly/3fOF3Wf Instagram: https://bit.ly/3rIaJSG TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@speakupforblue Twitter: https://bit.ly/3rHZxpc YouTube: www.speakupforblue.com/youtube

In 1988, someone found a striped mussel the size of a fingernail in Lake St. Clair. Within a few years, zebra mussels coated pipes, boats, and the bottom of the Great Lakes, and they became the poster child for "it's too late." Andrew closes Marine Pollution week with the pollutant that breaks every rule: a living one that reproduces instead of diluting.

He follows two invaders. Zebra mussels rode in on ship ballast water, clogged power plant intakes, and stripped plankton from the base of the food web. Lionfish, likely released from home aquariums, spread from Florida across the Caribbean and cut the number of young native fish settling on reefs by about 79% in one experiment.

Then comes the fight back. Ballast water rules tightened between 1993 and 2008, and new invasions in the Great Lakes fell 85%, to the lowest rate in two centuries. In the Bahamas, keeping lionfish low on small patches of reef let native fish rebound by 50 to 70%. Andrew wraps with the role every boater and paddler plays: clean, drain, and dry, every time.

Takeaways:

• Invasive species are biological pollution, and they multiply over time.
• Zebra mussels arrived in ballast water and were found in Lake St. Clair in 1988.
• Densities at one Michigan power plant topped 700,000 mussels per square metre within a year.
• Lionfish likely reached the Atlantic through aquarium releases and now range from North Carolina to the Caribbean.
• Lionfish cut the number of young native fish settling on test reefs by about 79% in five weeks.
• Stricter ballast rules dropped new Great Lakes invasions from 26 to 4 per 13-year period.
• Keeping lionfish numbers low on targeted reefs let native prey fish rebound by 50 to 70%.
• Florida divers removed 31,773 lionfish in the 2024 Lionfish Challenge.
• Ontario has required boaters to drain water and remove plants and animals before moving a boat overland since 2022.
• Clean, drain, and dry every boat, canoe, kayak, or paddleboard between waterways.

Support Independent Podcasts: https://www.speakupforblue.com/patreon

Need help with your ocean non-profit, company, or project? Get the help you need with Pisces Oceans Inc.: https://www.piscesoceans.ca Connect with Speak Up For Blue Website: https://bit.ly/3fOF3Wf Instagram: https://bit.ly/3rIaJSG TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@speakupforblue Twitter: https://bit.ly/3rHZxpc YouTube: www.speakupforblue.com/youtube

You rinse the yogurt tub, check the number on the bottom, and drop it in the blue bin. In Canada, only about 9% of plastic waste actually gets recycled, and the global rate is the same. Andrew breaks down why plastic is so hard to recycle, why microplastics are so hard to study, and what the controversy over plastic-in-the-brain headlines does and doesn't tell us.

Then the story moves to a beach in Stanley Park in 1994, where Vancouver Aquarium staff and volunteers started picking up trash and writing down what they found. That cleanup grew into a national program, and its data fed into the federal science assessment that led Canada to list plastic manufactured items as toxic and ban six single-use items. Industry groups took Ottawa to court and won the first round in 2023. On January 30, 2026, the Federal Court of Appeal reversed that ruling.

Andrew walks through what that win delivers: a ban projected to keep more than 22,000 tonnes of plastic pollution out of the environment over ten years, and a Federal Plastics Registry that tracks plastic from the producer to its end of life. He's honest about the setbacks too, then closes with the simplest action in the series: join a shoreline cleanup and record what you find.

Takeaways:

• Canada recycled only about 9% of its plastic waste in 2016, and 86% went to landfill.
• Globally, plastic waste doubled from 2000 to 2019, and 22% was mismanaged.
• Plastic is many materials, which is a big reason recycling struggles.
• Microplastics are everywhere, and that makes clean lab controls hard to find.
• Some high-profile studies on plastic in the human body now face methodological challenges.
• Volunteer shoreline cleanup data informed Canada's science assessment of plastic pollution.
• Canada listed plastic manufactured items as toxic in 2021 and banned six single-use items.
• The Federal Court of Appeal upheld that listing on January 30, 2026.
• The Federal Plastics Registry now requires companies to report the plastic they put on the market.
• Join a shoreline cleanup that records its data, and your tally counts.

Support Independent Podcasts: https://www.speakupforblue.com/patreon

Need help with your ocean non-profit, company, or project? Get the help you need with Pisces Oceans Inc.: https://www.piscesoceans.ca Connect with Speak Up For Blue Website: https://bit.ly/3fOF3Wf Instagram: https://bit.ly/3rIaJSG TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@speakupforblue Twitter: https://bit.ly/3rHZxpc YouTube: www.speakupforblue.com/youtube

In 2001, government scientists started adding a tiny amount of the synthetic estrogen found in birth control pills to a remote lake in northwestern Ontario, at levels already measured in city wastewater. Within seven weeks, male fish were making egg-yolk protein. After two summers, some had eggs growing in their testes, and the fathead minnow population collapsed to about 1% of normal. Andrew explains how the same chemistry leaves our bodies every day, passes through treatment plants built for sewage and bacteria, and flows into rivers, lakes, and the coast.

Hormones are only part of it. In Sweden, researchers at Umeå University found that perch exposed to the anti-anxiety drug oxazepam, at levels matching wild fish, became bolder, fed faster, and drifted away from their schools, all behaviours that make a small fish easier to eat. Andrew then goes back to DDT, when bald eagles fell to 417 nesting pairs in the lower 48 states before the 1972 US ban let them climb past 71,000 breeding pairs.

The recovery story continues at Lake 260. Once the hormone additions stopped, the minnows came back to pre-experiment levels within three years. Switzerland is now upgrading about 120 treatment plants with ozone or activated carbon to remove more than 80% of these micropollutants, paid for by a small annual fee per person. Andrew closes with the part you control today: take your leftover and expired medications back to a pharmacy.

Takeaways:

• Your body doesn't use every bit of a pill, and what's left leaves in urine.
• Most treatment plants remove solids and bacteria, and many drug compounds pass straight through.
• At Lake 260, synthetic estrogen at about 5 to 6 nanograms per litre collapsed the fathead minnow population to about 1%.
• Lake trout that ate those minnows declined too.
• Oxazepam made perch bolder, faster feeders, and loners, raising their risk from predators.
• Bald eagles went from 417 nesting pairs in 1963 to more than 71,000 breeding pairs after DDT was banned.
• Lake 260's minnows recovered within three years once the hormone additions stopped.
• Switzerland is adding ozone and activated carbon treatment to about 120 plants to remove more than 80% of micropollutants.
• Ontario's free pharmacy return program collected more than 330,000 kg of medications in 2024.
• Keep taking what your doctor prescribes, and return the leftovers to a pharmacy instead of flushing or trashing them.

Support Independent Podcasts: https://www.speakupforblue.com/patreon

Need help with your ocean non-profit, company, or project? Get the help you need with Pisces Oceans Inc.: https://www.piscesoceans.ca Connect with Speak Up For Blue Website: https://bit.ly/3fOF3Wf Instagram: https://bit.ly/3rIaJSG TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@speakupforblue Twitter: https://bit.ly/3rHZxpc YouTube: www.speakupforblue.com/youtube

This summer, people are boarding whale watching boats and seeing humpbacks feeding in sight of the Manhattan skyline. Fifty years ago, that same water was an open sewer, and every toilet on Manhattan's West Side flushed straight into the Hudson River, untreated. Andrew tells the story of how the whales got here, and why it took most of a century.

He starts with the cause: sewers built to empty into the rivers, roughly 590 million gallons of raw sewage a day by the early 1900s, and floating screens at Coney Island to keep it away from swimmers. Then the turn. The city began testing the harbor in 1909 because people demanded it. In 1966, Hudson River fishermen met in an American Legion hall in Crotonville and used an 1899 bounty law against polluters, founding what became Riverkeeper. The Clean Water Act followed in 1972. The North River treatment plant, first proposed in 1938, finally opened in 1986 and ended daily raw sewage discharges into the Hudson, with the West Harlem community carrying the cost of its siting and sparking the environmental justice group WE ACT.

The results are hard to argue with: bacteria below dry-weather swimming standards since 1992, record oxygen levels, and 500 individual humpbacks identified in New York waters by Gotham Whale, helped by menhaden catch limits that let their food rebound. The work isn't finished, since heavy rain still pushes sewage through roughly 700 overflow outfalls. Andrew closes with one action: find your local Waterkeeper and follow your own water.

Takeaways:

• New York's sewers were designed to empty straight into the Hudson, the East River, and the harbor.
• By the early 1900s, roughly 590 million gallons of raw sewage a day flowed into the harbor.
• The city's Harbor Survey began in 1909 because of public outcry, and it still runs today.
• In 1966, Hudson River fishermen used an 1899 bounty law against polluters and founded what became Riverkeeper, now a model for more than 300 Waterkeeper groups.
• The 1972 Clean Water Act required real treatment and funded it.
• The North River plant took nearly 50 years from proposal (1938) to opening (1986).
• The plant's siting in West Harlem led to the founding of WE ACT for Environmental Justice.
• Bacteria have stayed below dry-weather swimming standards since 1992.
• Humpback sightings in the harbor estuary jumped from 1 (2011 to 2013) to 45 (2014 to 2016); 500 individuals have now been identified.
• Cleaner water and 2012 menhaden catch limits worked together to bring the whales back.
• Combined sewer overflows during heavy rain are the unfinished business.

Support Independent Podcasts: https://www.speakupforblue.com/patreon

Need help with your ocean non-profit, company, or project? Get the help you need with Pisces Oceans Inc.: https://www.piscesoceans.ca Connect with Speak Up For Blue Website: https://bit.ly/3fOF3Wf Instagram: https://bit.ly/3rIaJSG TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@speakupforblue Twitter: https://bit.ly/3rHZxpc YouTube: www.speakupforblue.com/youtube

Plastic keeps getting made, it never goes away, and almost none of it gets recycled. Dr. Judith Weis, Professor Emerita at Rutgers University Newark and Andrew's very first guest on this podcast more than 2,000 episodes ago, returns for her fourth appearance to talk about the second edition of her book, Marine Pollution: What Everyone Needs to Know.

Judith walks through every major category of marine pollution: nutrients, metals, oil, pesticides, marine debris, pharmaceuticals, ocean acidification, and one category that surprises most people, biological pollution. She explains why microplastics earned a brand new chapter, why they're so hard to study when they're in every lab and every body, and what Canada's legal fight over listing plastic as toxic means for regulation.

There's good news too. Judith grew up near a Hudson River full of raw sewage. After the Clean Water Act and new treatment plants, New Yorkers now walk the waterfront, the water is swimmable in dry weather, and humpback whales feed in New York Harbor. Andrew and Judith ask what that comeback can and can't teach us about plastic, and what you can do today.

Takeaways:

• Every major type of marine pollution comes down to three questions: where it comes from, what it does, and what we can do about it.
• Judith calls plastic the number one villain in marine pollution today because production keeps rising and recycling doesn't work at scale.
• Microplastics are 5 mm or smaller, mostly invisible, and carry chemicals both inside them and stuck to their surfaces.
• They're so widespread that researchers struggle to find microplastic-free controls for experiments.
• Canada listed plastic manufactured items as toxic under CEPA, banned six single-use categories, and saw that listing upheld on appeal.
• Large tanker spills have become far less common, with double hulls part of the reason.
• Sewage treatment after the Clean Water Act transformed the Hudson River and New York Harbor, and whales are back.
• Pharmaceuticals and hormones pass through treatment plants and change fish behavior and biology.
• Invasive species count as biological pollution, and unlike chemicals, they reproduce.
• Beach cleanups, local environmental chapters, and cutting your own plastic use are practical places to start.

Buy the book: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/marine-pollution-9780197753811?cc=ca&lang=en& Join the newsletter

Need help with your ocean non-profit, company, or project? Get the help you need with Pisces Oceans Inc.: https://www.piscesoceans.ca Connect with Speak Up For Blue Website: https://bit.ly/3fOF3Wf Instagram: https://bit.ly/3rIaJSG TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@speakupforblue Twitter: https://bit.ly/3rHZxpc YouTube: www.speakupforblue.com/youtube

All week, Andrew has asked listeners to comment on and show up for California's marine protected area review. Today he answers the question that comes after: once the meeting ends and the news coverage stops, how do you find out if anything actually changed? He works through four practical questions every ocean advocate should know how to answer.

First, where to find the current rules for any of the 124 MPAs in California's network (the California Department of Fish and Wildlife's own MPA pages). Second, why a Fish and Game Commission vote isn't the finish line, since approved changes still go through the state's formal rulemaking process before they're enforceable, which can take months. Third, how the rules get enforced on the ground, including MPA Watch, a statewide community science program where trained volunteers record how people use the coast inside and outside MPAs. Fourth, what happens to a petition that doesn't get adopted, and why the 10-year adaptive management cycle means it can come back.

Andrew closes with the bigger picture from this week: MPA design brings together natural science, social science, and the voices of everyone who uses the coast, and everyone deserves to feel safe speaking. He wants to hear from California listeners about MPA Watch and this week's episodes. Next week, Dr. Judith Weis joins the show to talk marine pollution.

Takeaways:

• CDFW's MPA pages are the authoritative, current source for maps and rules at every MPA in California.
• A Commission vote starts the formal rulemaking process; a change only becomes enforceable once that process is complete.
• The gap between approval and enforcement can take months, and that time is spent making sure a rule holds up in law.
• MPA Watch trains volunteers to record human activity inside and outside MPAs, and CDFW and research partners use that data.
• About 2,000 volunteers had joined MPA Watch by 2019.
• California reviews its MPA network every 10 years, so a petition that doesn't pass this cycle can be revisited with new science and data.
• MPA design draws on natural science, social science, and community input together.
• You can take part by checking the rules, joining MPA Watch, or simply attending a Commission meeting to observe.

Website: https://californiampas.org/about-mpas/california-state-mpas

Support Independent Podcasts: https://www.speakupforblue.com/patreon

Need help with your ocean non-profit, company, or project? Get the help you need with Pisces Oceans Inc.: https://www.piscesoceans.ca Connect with Speak Up For Blue Website: https://bit.ly/3fOF3Wf Instagram: https://bit.ly/3rIaJSG TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@speakupforblue Twitter: https://bit.ly/3rHZxpc YouTube: www.speakupforblue.com/youtube

Earlier this year, about 65,000 people submitted comments on a federal deep-sea mining proposal near the Northern Mariana Islands, most of them opposed. The area under consideration nearly doubled anyway. So why should anyone show up to a public meeting about the ocean? Andrew Lewin makes the case with two marine protected area processes that earned broad public support by design.

The first is the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park's Representative Areas Program, which rezoned the entire park between 1999 and 2004. Two formal community participation phases, one before any draft existed, drew more than 31,000 public submissions, while standing local advisory committees kept fishers, tourism operators, and coastal communities in the conversation year round. No-take zones grew from about 4.5 percent of the park to 33.3 percent. The second is the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary off California's Central Coast, nominated by the Northern Chumash Tribal Council in 2015 and designated in October 2024 after a staged NOAA process that drew more than 110,000 comments, over 98 percent in support.

Andrew explains what those processes had that a bare petition process lacks: staged phases, standing advisory structures, clear ownership of the proposal, and a room where people feel safe to speak. He connects it to what happened in California's MPA review, covered earlier this week with Anupa Asokan, and to the Fish and Game Commission meetings in Sacramento this October. He wants to hear about your own public comment experiences, good or bad.

Takeaways:

• A petition process with no staged phases, standing advisory structure, or way to reconcile competing input tends to produce conflict and weak buy-in.
• The Great Barrier Reef rezoning ran two formal public phases, in 2002 and 2003, and drew more than 31,000 submissions.
• Local marine advisory committees kept dialogue with fishers, tourism operators, and communities going between the formal windows.
• No-take zones grew from about 4.5 percent to 33.3 percent of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in 2004.
• Andrew recalls fisher tracking data being used to place new no-take areas where they would have the least impact on fishing.
• A study of the rezoning found science, leadership, public engagement, and politics all had to work together for approval.
• The Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary was the first tribally nominated national marine sanctuary in the US, and more than 98 percent of comments supported it.
• Without buy-in, a marine protected area risks becoming a paper park.
• Knowing how the process works makes it easier to show up, speak, and support others in the room.

Support Independent Podcasts: https://www.speakupforblue.com/patreon

Need help with your ocean non-profit, company, or project? Get the help you need with Pisces Oceans Inc.: https://www.piscesoceans.ca Connect with Speak Up For Blue Website: https://bit.ly/3fOF3Wf Instagram: https://bit.ly/3rIaJSG TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@speakupforblue Twitter: https://bit.ly/3rHZxpc YouTube: www.speakupforblue.com/youtube

In 2014, just two years after California finished its statewide network of marine protected areas, a marine heatwave known as The Blob settled over the Pacific coast and stayed for two years. Kelp forests collapsed up and down the state, and sea star wasting disease wiped out sea stars on a scale few scientists had seen. For a network built partly to protect kelp habitat, it was the worst possible first test.

Andrew Lewin walks through what the state learned when it checked. California's first Decadal Management Review pulled together long-term monitoring across kelp forests, rocky reefs, the intertidal, sandy beaches, and more, producing seven technical reports plus an independent synthesis from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis so the state wasn't grading its own work. A UCLA-led study in the Journal of Applied Ecology then used nearly four decades of satellite imagery to show that kelp inside MPAs recovered better after the heatwave than similar unprotected coastline, most clearly in Southern California.

The reason comes down to predators. Inside MPAs, California sheephead and spiny lobster were protected from fishing and kept urchins in check, so recovering kelp beds weren't mowed down into urchin barrens. Andrew covers the 2023 recommendations that came out of the review, how the Ocean Protection Council is folding them into California's 30x30 commitment, and why he'd like to see these assessments happen every five years instead of every ten. Thursday, the series turns to who gets heard in what happens next.

Takeaways:

• The 2014 to 2016 marine heatwave (The Blob) and El Niño hit two years after California completed its MPA network, collapsing kelp forests statewide.
• California's first MPA Decadal Management Review, released by CDFW in January 2023 with the Ocean Protection Council, drew on long-term monitoring across multiple habitats.
• The review produced seven technical reports and one synthesis report, with the synthesis led by an outside group, NCEAS, for independent perspective.
• A UCLA-led study in the Journal of Applied Ecology used satellite imagery from 1984 to 2022 and found kelp inside MPAs recovered better after the heatwave than matched unprotected sites, most clearly in Southern California.
• The likely mechanism is a trophic cascade: protected sheephead and spiny lobster keep urchin populations from exploding into kelp-eating barrens.
• CDFW's recommendations are organized around MPA governance, the MPA management program, and overall network performance.
• The network covers 16% of state waters across 124 MPAs, and the Ocean Protection Council is treating it as a foundation for California's 30x30 goal.
• Regular, checkable assessments show where protection is working and make the case for expanding it.

Support Independent Podcasts: https://www.speakupforblue.com/patreon

Need help with your ocean non-profit, company, or project? Get the help you need with Pisces Oceans Inc.: https://www.piscesoceans.ca Connect with Speak Up For Blue Website: https://bit.ly/3fOF3Wf Instagram: https://bit.ly/3rIaJSG TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@speakupforblue Twitter: https://bit.ly/3rHZxpc YouTube: www.speakupforblue.com/youtube