What marine fauna would mean humans

In a few days, a large international summit on the oceans will be held in Nice.

As marine creatures, what do you expect?

The octopus: We are very impatient! It is high time that humans are starting to think together with what they do with the oceans. We hope that it will not be a large summit among others and that there will be real advances. Foundation, plastic pollution, mining or protected areas … there is no shortage of issues. And they are immense.

The Grande-Guerge Shark: If I can afford, you should start by achieving the magnitude of your ignorance … Do you know that, from a cartographic point of view, you have explored the ocean funds less than the surface of the moon? That you only know about 10 % of marine species? Me for example, with my phosphorescent mouth a meter in diameter, you only discovered me in the 1970s. And you baptized me “Grande-Genuale Shark”, which, between us, is not very nice. I have a name that scares when I only feed on plankton.

Yeti crab: Me, it was in 2005 that I was discovered. As I am a crustacean with kinds of hair, I was called “Yeti crab”, but in reality, I am rather a very advanced Bernard-l’Hermite. I would have to explain to you that crab is the ultimate stage of the evolution of all crustaceans, but it would be too long to develop. I agree with my Grande-Guy boyfriend: you don’t know much about the ocean. Here! Do black smokers tell you something?

This is where I live. These are sources of water coming out of the ocean floor. Very loaded with chemical elements, very toxic, they nevertheless give birth to life! To quickly, on earth, life comes from the sun, thanks to photosynthesis. But under the ocean, more than 2,000 m background, there is no light. And yet, life is born from these chemicals transformed by bacteria. You call it “chemosynthesis”, even if you understand it very badly. There are proteins, molecules, chemical reactions that you do not yet know. And there are therefore a lot of discoveries to make. I would like to talk to you about the sailors who have an amazing hemoglobin, which could revolutionize the transfusions, or these very interesting microbiota mussels … The medicine of tomorrow is there. Beware not to destroy what you don’t know!

Diatomie: Hey, but … I feel that we will still forget me. You mentioned photosynthesis as if it was a terrestrial subject … In fact, half of the oxygen that humans breathe is produced by algae. And when I say the seaweed, I am not talking about those that look like terrestrial plants, but the vast majority of them which are invisible to the naked eye. This is my case. I am not fixed at a rock. I swim like a fish. When I get closer to the surface, I capture sunlight that I transform into an organic matter. Then I get eaten by plankton, who are eating themselves, and so on. On Earth, food chains generally have few ladder: a plant, a herbivore, and possibly a carnivore – two at most. In the ocean, they are much longer, with dozens of steps. Finally, if no one eats me, I end up dying and my skeleton forms the limestone which is a great carbon storage reservoir. In short, I am super important.

We do not doubt it.

But back to our summit.

What do you expect from humans?

You mentioned the need to create protected areas …

Don’t they already exist?

The octopus: Do you want to laugh? In France for example, they barely cover a thousandth of territorial waters. And again, they have “protected” only the name. In reality, as long as we get the right authorizations, we do what we want there. Including background trawling.

You would like to prohibit background trawling. For what ?

The Sébaste: As a fish from the cold seas, I will answer, because I am directly threatened. In the great funds, everything is cold. And everything is slow, including the growth of animals. I have long become mature. On the other hand, I can live very old: about 150 years. It surprises you to know that I knew Napoleon III, right? So if the chalt, which are real bulldozers of the seas, come to fish me en masse, I will not have time to reproduce myself …

We often see you on the stalls of fishmongers. You are a kind of sea bream, right?

The Sébaste: No but say, a little respect! The fishmongers sometimes call me “sebaste sea bream”, but it’s about as absurd as if a butcher sold “cow giraffe” biftecks. Anyway, there are very few rules in the names of the fish, and even less control. You can sell anything under any name.

This brings us to a simple question: should we eat less fish?

The Sébaste: Certainly. You should especially consume durable and local. Today, it’s very easy to find out about what we eat. And it is not necessarily more expensive. Especially if we take into account the fact that industrial fishing lives largely thanks to subsidies. Not only does it destroy the environment, but it is not even profitable.

The octopus: Above all, Di-Ver-Si-Fieu your diet! You eat tons of tuna and salmon, and very few other species … It is not viable. The salmon are fed with fish flours, which are also given to poultry and pigs. The tuna are often contaminated with mercury and heavy metals … So eat smaller fish. They are renewed faster and are better for health.

Is heating of the oceans a problem for you?

Whale: + 1.3 ° C in a few decades, do you think it’s trivial? I am a mammal, with hot blood; So I have a kind of internal thermostat. But fish must be able to keep their blood. Technically, they are at the same temperature as water. Would you like to have 38.3 temperature permanently? And again, we plan + 4 ° C by the end of the century! So the fish will seek colder water by migrating to the poles. The distribution areas of species move … but how far? And until when?

The Coral: Sorry, but allow me to add that not all species can migrate … This is my case. You may not know it, but my pretty colors come from the seaweed that I raise in my body and which constitute 75 % of my food. When it is too hot, these algae die. So, I expel them, and I become white. And I only have 25 % of my food. So I also end up dying. However, a coral reef, let me tell you that it is slowly formed. It takes millennia to push a few centimeters. The rapid changes of the last two centuries are a huge upheaval for me. So add to that the trawling that we have already talked about, which bears me with the rest, and soon perhaps the mining of the great funds …

Do you refer to the recent statements by the President of the United States who said he wanted to get rare ores at the bottom of the oceans? What do you think?

Yeti crab: It would take place at home, in black smokers. The ocean floor is covered with polymetallic nodules, which resemble black potatoes, placed at the bottom of the water. You only have to pick them up to recover the very rare metals that constitute them. Inevitably, it excites lusts. Only, to harvest them, you have to bring machines to the bottom of the water, which will still destroy everything, but above all mix everything.

That’s to say ?

The Grande-Guerge Shark: The ocean, you see, it is not a mass of uniform water. There are diapers, like in a cake. These layers have densities, temperatures, different salinities, and do not mix. If we move everything, we upset very old balances. On this subject, we are really waiting for decisions. Before destroying everything to be able to change your phone every year, shouldn’t you seriously think?

We have not yet talked about plastic pollution …

Albatross: And you have not yet given the floor to a bird … Now I know that you like me, me, the “prince of the clouds, who haunts the storm and laughs at the archer”*, with my marital fidelity, my freedom, my courage … So here I am. Plastic, I can see it, up there. In some places, where the currents converge, there are as far as the eye can see! Bags, bottles, caps, fishing nets … It’s crazy what you use! While you could do otherwise. You always produce more … As if, in a few decades, you have become dependent. And me, without doing it on purpose, I eat. It weakens me. It kills me. Still, I only speak of macroplastics there, those who see each other. There are also all the tiny particles that contaminate everyone, from plankton to you, dear humans, who eat the equivalent of a blue card per week.

Thank you for teaching us so much, sometimes a little frightening but that make you think … Madam whale, we leave you the word at the end.

Whale: Do you know what would be great? May the participants of the Nice summit take the time to come and swim with us. We are there, with two offshore breaststones. And you too, dive! Come contemplate the diversity of the living. The wonder is necessary, and it is the source of many vocations.

*Extract from Albatros, by Charles Baudelaire.