Fish Droppings Unrecognized Benefit
- Maggie Jensen
- Jan 22, 2022
- 2 min read
Every year, fish excrement removes 1.65 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere.
Many animals that inhabit this planet offer ecosystem services that benefit those around them, including us humans. In addition to playing a vital role in the diet of millions of people, fish offer assistance in other ways. In fact, fish actively mitigate the effects of climate change.
In case you are not familiar with the carbon cycle, here are the basics: during photosynthesis, CO₂ (carbon dioxide) is removed from the atmosphere to create food made from carbon for plant development. Carbon, through food chains, then transfers from plants to animals. When these plants and animals die, they decay moving the
carbon into the ground. Some of which is buried and ultimately becomes fossil fuels in the millions of years that follow. In addition to many other movements, Carbon travels from the atmosphere to our oceans. The oceans, as well as other bodies of water, absorb 30-50% of carbon from the atmosphere as it is dissolved into the water.
It is critical to recognize and protect the underwater species that aid in storing carbon. All species of fish fall in this category. Every year, fish excrement removes 1.65 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere. Organisms capture carbon when feeding and allow this carbon to move deep into the ocean through excretion. As explained in SciTechDaily, “Understanding just how much carbon is pooed into the deep ocean by fishes is challenging, however. Scientists argue about the number of fishes present in the world’s ocean, exactly where they live, how much they eat, and how much, and where, they poo.” Regardless of dispute in regards to numbers, it is clear that fish (as well as other marine life) are key to moving atmospheric carbon into stored carbon in our water. Focusing on leaving these ecosystems to their work and avoiding disruption should be a focus when evaluating our approach to the climate crisis.
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