It鈥檚 been one discovery after another for Canadian scientists exploring the ocean depths a few hundred kilometres off the coast of Vancouver Island.
On expeditions in 2018 and 2019, researchers found massive undersea mountains, never-before-seen organisms and a vast city of deep sea sponges that they nicknamed Spongetopia.
Their latest findings, however, have cast those earlier discoveries in a more sobering light.
In the first published study coming out of the expeditions, the scientists report that many of the newly observed species might already be on the way out.
鈥淲hat we have found is evidence of climate change in the deep sea,鈥� said Cherisse Du Preez, a marine biologist with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and a member of the seamount expeditions in 2018 and 2019.
鈥淚t isn鈥檛 what we were looking for when we went out there. We went out there to catalogue the life. But what we found is that ocean acidification is rising, the oxygen is dropping.
鈥淲e have a 60-year time series that shows that this is significant and we鈥檙e finding this is having an impact on the animals that we鈥檝e just newly discovered are down there.鈥�
Du Preez and fellow scientists Tetjana Ross and Debby Ianson report that local extinctions in the deep sea will become common within a few decades if the trend persists.
鈥淲e were surprised that the changes were happening as rapidly as they were that deep in the ocean, because this sort of signal we expect to be communicated closer to the surface,鈥� said Ianson, a biogeochemical oceanographer with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
Ianson and Du Preez both said they hope the paper sounds an alarm.
鈥淲hat we want to do is warn people that now鈥檚 the time to mitigate every direct human impact that we can, because we have to buffer these animals from what鈥檚 about to happen to them,鈥� Du Preez said.
In that sense, she said, their research underlines the importance of work being done by the Canadian government and First Nations along the coast to create large marine protected areas to shield creature from seabed mining and harmful fishing practices.
The Explorer Seamount, for example, an underwater volcano that rises 2.5 kilometres from the ocean floor and rivals Mount Baker in height, sits at the centre of 133,000 square kilometres of ocean that sa国际传媒 declared an Offshore Pacific Area of Interest in 2017.
At the time, the federal government said it intended to make the region one of sa国际传媒鈥檚 largest Marine Protected Areas by 2020.
Ianson said Canadians can only do so much to reduce the worldwide emissions that are causing the planet to warm.
鈥淵ou know, that part is something that鈥檚 a global problem,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut what we can do is actually say, 鈥楬ey, we鈥檙e not going to put more stress on these creatures. We鈥檙e not going to fish them. We鈥檙e not going to allow deep-sea mining or things like that.鈥�
鈥淚n a way, that鈥檚 the feel-good story because we can do something about this,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd hopefully people realize that climate change is progressing a little more rapidly than many things can adapt.鈥�
Du Preez admitted that it鈥檚 been gut-wrenching for scientists to find so many new species in recent years only to learn that many of them are facing extinction.
鈥淵ou have no idea,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very strange, because we鈥檙e working with taxonomists to identify these animals, to name them.
鈥淪o we鈥檙e discussing these animals that are brand new to science, and we鈥檙e explaining how it is that they may no longer be around very long. That鈥檚 very sobering.
鈥淏ut nature鈥檚 a remarkable thing and if we can just give them a wide berth and buffer for these impacts, they stand a better chance.鈥�
