At the opening event of the 2022 Sapphire Coast whale trail in Bermagui on Saturday, August 13, Jessica Millar had two messages - the recovery in humpback whale numbers is reason for hope; and how that is particularly important given whales play a huge role in capturing and storing carbon dioxide.
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Ms Millar and her husband Simon have owned and operated Merimbula Marina, now known as Sapphire Coastal Adventures, since 2008
She cited a collaborative study published in 2015 that estimated 2.9 million whales were slaughtered during the 20th Century.
Between 1900 and 1999, the whaling industry killed 276,442 whales in the North Atlantic, 563,696 in the North Pacific and 2,053,956 in the Southern Hemisphere.
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Ms Millar quoted Stephen Palumbi, a marine ecologist at Stanford University in California, who said it was important to know the number of whales that have been killed because "it does make a difference to what we do now".
"It tells us the number of whales the oceans might be able to support.
"When you look into the eye of a whale and see its consciousness, it is amazing to think we killed them," Ms Millar said.
A government paper estimated that when the Australian east coast whaling industry ended in 1963, the population of humpback whales had been reduced to a little over 100 individuals.
Ms Millar said through global and national conservation efforts, it is estimated that about 40,000 humpback whales now migrate to Antarctica through Australian waters.
Other whale species, such as the southern right, have not recovered so strongly.
A solution to climate change
She said there was increasing evidence that by protecting whales we were protecting our oceans' health.
Ms Millar said that during a whale's lifespan of between 60 and 80 years, it accumulated 33 tonnes of CO2 on average.
By comparison, it was estimated that a tree absorbs a tonne of CO2 in a 100-year lifespan.
Ms Millar said when whales die and sink to the bottom of the ocean, the consumed carbon was locked away for hundreds of years
She said whales also fertilise the ocean.
The trail of iron and nitrogen they leave as they migrate to and from Antarctica was the ideal environment for phytoplankton.
Phytoplankton produce half of the world's oxygen, and capture an estimated 40 per cent of all the CO2 produced, she said.
"So whales are so important on so many levels.
"Whales remind us in such a visual and majestic way how important it is to protect the ocean.
"If we kill off the ocean, we kill off humanity."
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