A striking video was captured of a blue whale taking a giant poo off the coast of Australia this week by researchers capturing videos of whales migrating to cooler waters, as summer starts to hit.
If you’ve never seen a whale take a poo in the ocean before, it’s actually absolutely stunning. And researchers are incredibly excited, because this is actually an important moment to capture on film.
Despite their size, no one here at Tenth Floor Living had really considered just what a whale’s poo would look like before now… or how large it would be.
Landscape photographer Ian Wiese was filming at Point Picquet, which is just south of Perth, Australia, watching for blue whales when he caught this incredible footage.
Wiese, along with a team of volunteers, is looking to capture the whales as they migrate away from the warm summer ocean waters that Australia has to offer to the cooler temperatures.
Wiese and his team had to apply for special research permits that allow them to fly drones so close to the whales and their natural habitat. Normally, this area has a 200-meter exclusion zone to keep the whales, and the ocean, protected.
It makes sense that the color of a whale’s excrement would indicate what the whale had eaten, and when.
According to Wiese, a whale’s poo is normally pink or red, which is the color of the krill that blue whales primarily ate. “I’ve never seen or heard of bright yellow… it must be a different special of krill they found.” He joked with reporters.
The color and timing suggest that the whale had eaten its dinner within the last 24 hours, and it must have eaten somewhere off Perth as it swam from Indonesia down to the Victorian and South Australian border.
Curt Jenner, from the West Australian Center for Whale Research, said that a whale’s poo is a “key nutrient for the ocean environment which essentially creates “pastures” for small fish and krill to feed on.”
He went on to say that whale poo is also essential in creating algae, which is a key component for a wide variety of marine life.
In case you’re curious, Jenner also said that a blue whale can produce up to 200 liters of poo with each bowel movement. That’s nearly 53 gallons of poo.
