Waiting for Evolution

Client: WDCS (Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society)

Agency: Jung von Matt, Germany

Tagline: They Can’t Afford to Wait for Evolution

Few animals on the planet have a more spiritual effect on people than whales and dolphins.

Few animals on the planet have a more harmful effect on whales and dolphins than people:

The two most alarming threats to cetaceans are two different kinds of pollution:

Noise Pollution—water is the best conductor of sound on the planet. Most marine animals, especially cetaceans, rely on sound more than any other sense. Using echolocation, whales can find each other hundreds of miles away. But the noise of shipping lanes, military sonar, drilling, and acoustic thermometry is destroying many cetacean populations. Extensive noise interferes with hunting, migration, breeding and social activities—an increasing amount of whales are unable to detect food, coordinate hunts, find mates or even members of their own pod. Noise doesn’t just affect their ears--exposure to intense levels of noise causes the compressed nitrogen in a cetacean’s tissue to produce bubbles, which causes decompression sickness. DCS causes internal bleeding, organ damage and disorientation. Chronic exposure can even cause certain populations to abandon their habitats.

Pollution—pollution is more than murky water or trash, and has one of the most detrimental effects to humans. Think of it like being pregnant. Your baby eats and drinks the same things you do. The ocean’s kind of like our baby, and pollution’s a bit like smoking and drinking while you’re pregnant—in that your baby can come out looking like The Thing:

This is pretty much what the ocean looks like right now.

When it rains, the toxins released into the air from fossil fuels merge into the water droplets, running off into our groundwater, which goes into the ocean. The most alarming contaminant in this runoff is mercury. Mercury levels increase with food chain levels: the higher up the species on the food chain, the higher the levels of mercury. This is why mercury in tuna has been such a concern—but only for its affect on humans. In cetaceans, specifically toothed whales, mercury causes reproductive complications, devastated immune systems and severe neurological damage (just like in humans).

Radiation—with the recent disasters in Japan, marine radiation has come into the forefront of environmental concerns. As Japan dumps more and more eradiated water into the ocean, more and more animals are suffering radiation poisoning—including cetaceans. No doubt we’ll be seeing the effects of this disaster for years to come.

Helping the oceans starts with awareness.

Let’s start today.