MONTREAL, Quebec, Canada, June 8, 2004 (ENS) - "Levels of krill, the basis of the marine food chain, are in free fall in the Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence, according to new research by scientists with the Maurice Lamontagne Institute, a marine science center associated with the federal agency Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
A probable cause, the scientists say, is global warming, and the risk is a reduction in the number of whales and fishes in these waters. Since 2000, half the usual number of humpback, fin, sei and blue whales come to feed on krill each summer in front of Tadoussac, a town on the Saguenay Fjord that has become famous for its whale watching opportunities. "The biomass of macrozooplankton
in these two areas has dropped from 32 metric tons per square kilometer (km²) in 1994 to 10 tons per km² in 2003, which represents a reduction of 70 percent in 10 years," researchers Michel Harvey and Michel Starr write, in a recent publication of the Maurice Lamontagne Institute.
"The phenomenon is worrying, said Harvey in an interview.
Canada's Saguenay–St. Lawrence Marine Park is located nearly 600 miles from the Atlantic coast, at the confluence of two major water bodies - the St. Lawrence Estuary and the Saguenay Fjord, one of the longest fjords in the world. The vast quantities of water carried seaward by the St. Lawrence River are subjected to daily tides of more than 15 feet and to strong upwellings of glacial nutrient rich water. This system has historically supported high concentrations of krill that are the basis of a food web that includes baleen whales, fodder fish species, beluga whales, seals and sea birds. Scientists do not know what consequences will result from the drop in krill levels. Some researchers already have noted changes in the dispersion and the concentration of whales."
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