Fossil-fuelled ocean heat has lambasted coral reefs, home to 25% of marine life. This manmade heat is simply too much for sharks, so they are leaving reefs.
Cold-blooded grey reef sharks are moving offshore into deeper cooler waters and this spells disaster for coral life systems attempting to hang-on.
Sharks keep coral reefs in balance. They eat both herbivores and smaller predatory fish, and prevent reefs from being overgrazed or overgrown by algae.
Already reef sharks are absent from at least 20% of the world’s coral reefs. And those systems are in deadly tailspins.
More than 75% of global reefs were bleached between 2014-2017. Thirty per cent of those suffered death. The Great Barrier Reef is in shocking condition. Parts of it have disintegrated from deadly marine heatwaves.
Coral reefs are also vital nurseys for whales, sea turtles, rays, sea snakes, sharks, many fish species and so many others. The accelerating loss of marine habitat and species is terrifying. Every day, 150 species go extinct.
The more fossil fuels, wood pellets and palm oil we burn, the faster the planet’s cooling mechanisms, Greenland and Antarctic’s ice sheets, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and the Amazon Rainforest shall collapse. Once one mechanism goes, the remainder will drop like dominos.
The animals are the heartbeat of Mother Earth. Rewilding the planet is the most effective carbon drawdown. Plant-based diets could easily feed the world, free up a rewilding area equivalent to the U.S., E.U., China and Australia and knock global heating on the chin. Putting the animals back onto the landscape and getting two billion hooks and ghost nets outta the oceans is the pathway forward.
“It’s not just about saving the sharks; it’s about saving ourselves,” said the late conservationist, Rob Stewart. This can be realised by assigning Mother Earth rights, the same personhood rights that corporations hold.
Never give up! Hope with direct action is humanity’s antidote to surviving this extinction.
Agitate. Disrupt. Defend.
Reese Halter is a bees/trees/seas defender.
Unearthly Wails is a special edition, a collection of poetry
illustrated by renowned Ojibwa artist Terry McCue.
Email: HalterBooks@gmail.com to order
