Newsletter #1 August 2025
WhaleX Foundation is poised to make a meaningful impact on marine conservation, with a strong focus on phytoplankton ecosystems (microscopic plants that live in the ocean) and whale protection. We aim to raise awareness, fund crucial research, engage communities, to ensure the long-term sustainability of our oceans. Together, we can create a world where whales and marine ecosystems thrive for generations to come.
We are excited to launch our very first Newsletter to keep you up to date with what we have been doing and to give you some insights into ocean ecosystems illuminating the world of whales and phytoplankton and how they impact the planet in very important ways. Follow the WhaleX Foundation’s journey through highlights of our research into the potential of Ocean Nourishment as a marine restoration and carbon dioxide removal solution.
What Is Ocean Nourishment?
As climate change accelerates, there is increasing interest in the ability of phytoplankton to trap excess atmospheric carbon pollution using photosynthesis. Ocean Nourishment (shown below) is a plankton-based marine Carbon Dioxide Removal (mCDR) solution to support the world in addressing the climate crisis. It aims to regenerate ocean ecosystems by purposefully placing nutrients back into the ocean where they are needed.
Ocean Nourishment featured in the top 100 carbon removal solutions in the XPRIZE Carbon Removal global competition. The Ocean Nourishment solution fertilises the ocean with location-specific nutrients that support phytoplankton growth, the life at the bottom of the marine food chain. This innovation looks to nature because nature has always figured it out first – and best – after millions of years of evolution. Therefore, we build on what whales have been doing over the past 40 million years.
The ocean nourishment solution
WhaleX Experimental Focus
Conducting experiments is very important to develop a robust measurement, reporting and verification methodology of the Ocean Nourishment process. On 02 June 2025, the WhaleX team completed the second in a series of mesocosm (BioPod) experiments conducted at the Calico Marina near Cronulla Wharf. Mike Abbott of Cronulla Whale Watching is the captain of the Blue Cat vessel that took the team offshore to collect seawater for the experiment. The primary objective of the voyage was to test the Ocean Nourishment concept by installing real-time measurement (AquaPi) equipment in a BioPod to measure the response of phytoplankton growth (Chlorophyll-a) to the addition of nutrients compared to a control, i.e. no nutrient addition. Seawater was collected offshore in the general direction of the Port Hacking National Reference Station, where there is a long history of oceanographic measurements maintained by the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS).
The offshore water with the nutrient mix was pumped into the BioPod that was tethered to a boat bay at the Marina. Additional culture bottle experiments were set up nearby, one filled with nutrient-added and the other with untreated seawater to be used as a control. The BioPod and the culture bottles were each fitted with a set of AquaPi sensors to measure and monitor the temperature and chlorophyll-a in real-time. The setup of the experiment is shown below.
Floating BioPod and Culture Bottle Ocean Nourishment experimental set up
Due to strong gale force winds predicted for 04 June, all equipment was retrieved and packed up putting an abrupt end to the experiment. The results even over the short duration of this experiment were encouraging with real-time measurements of temperature and chlorophyll-a able to be monitored remotely on a website.
The laboratory results informed the team about the nutrient dosage levels in the BioPod compared to the culture bottle experiments on the wharf. The experimental design now forms the basis for a verifiable, repeatable methodology for future Ocean Nourishment Experiments. In the coming months the WhaleX team plan to deploy another experiment over a longer time frame to gain further insight into the growth type and rate of plankton and carbon uptake in response to nutrient treatments.
Humpback Highway
Similar to what WhaleX are doing, nourishing the ocean with nutrients, great whales also act as climate engineers, stimulating productivity by providing nutrients to microscopic phytoplankton through their excretions that are called “nutrient plumes’. As whales make their annual migrations across the world, a phenomenon that has been described as “the great whale conveyor belt”, they may qualify as the largest long-distance transfer of nutrients on the Earth.
In subtropical waters, nitrogen is generally a limiting nutrient, so the nitrogen in their excrement that whales add to the system acts as fertilizer to increase the growth of photosynthetic phytoplankton, the base of marine food chain. The nitrogen contributed to low-latitude ecosystems by the main four species of migrating whales - humpbacks, gray whales, north atlantic and southern right whales - results in the fixation of around 18 thousand tons of carbon per year, equivalent to the amount fixed by 835 thousand mature trees. Read more in the Nautilus article The Great Whale Conveyor Belt.
From May to August, waterways along the East Coast of Australia act as the Humpback Highway with whales migrating north to warmer waters. The peak of the season is around the end of June and throughout July, when the highest numbers of whales can be seen from the NSW coastline. Hundreds of volunteers turn up to count the number of whales migrating along the coast. About 40 000 whales, predominantly humpbacks pass through the Humpback Highway each year. If you want to see this spectacular phenomenon contact Mike Abbott of Cronulla Whale Watching to book a cruise.
Phytoplankton the key to life underwater
Phytoplankton have been essential to life on Earth for over 35 billion years. Through photosynthesis, they consume carbon dioxide on a scale comparable to that of forests and other land plants. Millions of tiny phytoplankton are critical components of the Earth’s system, producing at least 50% of the oxygen we breathe and playing a crucial role in the global carbon cycle. They are the invisible forest that represents around 80% of the biomass in the ocean that is eaten or dies and then sinks as marine snow to sequester gigatonnes of atmospheric carbon dioxide annually. Measurements of chlorophyll-a by satellites show that phytoplankton represent the ‘fast’ carbon cycle that operates on the scale of days to weeks compared to decades or centuries for forests on land. The UN Plankton Manifesto recognizes the heavy lifting that phytoplankton do, outlining the triple planetary crisis – biodiversity, climate, and pollution that plankton-based solutions can address (United Nations, 2024).
WhaleX have been analysing water samples collected during the experiments to determine the main types of plankton, including plants (phytoplankton) and animals (zooplankton), that occur in the region of the Tasman Sea that we are working in. The long term plankton observations from the Port Hacking National Reference Station off the East Coast of Australia indicate that the major functional groups of phytoplankton in the water include Noctiluca, Diatoms as well as Dinoflagellates and Flagellates. A small selection of plankton from our microscope analysis shows the presence of cladocera, green water chain diatoms, copepods and nannochloropsis in the water sample. The WhaleX team will continue to determine the types of plankton in the water to determine the types that grow best in response to the nutrient additions. (Images below are taken using a microscope by Daniel Ng of plankton from a tow at Chowder Bay).
Meet the Team
Dr Edwina Tanner - Founder and CEO WhaleX Foundation
Edwina is an experienced marine climate scientist with a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from the University of Sydney focused on carbon budgets at local and global scales. She has worked extensively in the higher education sector and has strong project management and professional skills. She has demonstrated results from global scientific projects through the World Harbour Project and WhaleX Foundation. As the CEO of WhaleX Foundation she is working with the team through experimentation and research to enhance marine carbon dioxide removal via the restoration of microalgae in ocean ecosystems. The research is guided by the roles that whales and plankton play in mitigating climate change.
Community Focus
In carbon dioxide removal, environmental justice helps to ensure the long-term viability of projects that have community support and mitigate risks that could halt project development. The meaningful involvement of communities in carbon project development and ecosystem restoration must include direct engagement. Stanley Ng, an enthusiastic member of our team, will be exploring the opportunities for the WhaleX Foundation to network with the community. We look forward to hearing more from Stanley about this in the next few months.
Publicity and Links
The first WhaleX Experiment that went ahead in late 2024 was filmed by Bloomberg. This was featured in a geoengineering episode highlighting the work that WhaleX are doing in the marine Carbon Dioxide Removal (mCDR) space, along with two other alternatives.
Join the WhaleX Crew
In addition to the scientific work, the team from Painting in Pictures have been filming the WhaleX Foundation crew to showcase our scientific work for a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for our longer follow up experiment planned for later in 2025. WhaleX are continuing fundraising initiatives and building our donor networks. Look out for our campaign to raise funds for building an education package for schools, universities and citizen scientists to help us on our journey to restore ocean ecosystems from the bottom of the food chain to the top.
To donate visit our website: https://www.whalexfoundation.org/
