The tiny Caribbean island of Dominica is creating the world’s first marine protected area for one of Earth’s largest animals: the endangered sperm whale.
Nearly 300 sq miles (800 sq km) of royal blue waters on the western side of the island nation that serve as key nursing and feeding grounds will be designated as a reserve, the government announced on Monday.
“We want to ensure these majestic and highly intelligent animals are safe from harm and continue keeping our waters and our climate healthy,” the prime minister of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit, said in a statement.
Scientists say the reserve not only will protect the animals, but it will also help fight the climate crisis.
Sperm whales defecate near the surface because they shut down non-vital functions when they dive to depths of up to 10,000ft (3,000 meters). As a result, nutrient-rich poop remains along the ocean surface and creates plankton blooms, which capture carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and drag it to the ocean floor when they die. And sperm whales in Dominica are believed to defecate more than whales elsewhere, said Shane Gero, a whale biologist and founder of the Dominica Sperm Whale Project, a research program focused on sperm whales in the eastern Caribbean.