Watching the motion of waves has always been meditative for me, soothing and comforting. Is it because I’m a water sign? Perhaps…or perhaps it’s some faint memory of being in utero. Regardless, I could sit and stare at the water all day, thinking deep thoughts and wondering about the life in that environment, a world inhospitable to me but perfectly suited to them. Are there really two worlds, one on land and one in the sea?

Thinking about ocean life means thinking about how humans have impacted the denizens of the waterworld, like the fact that there are estimated to only be around 400 North Atlantic right whales alive now. Having been hunted to the brink of extinction in the beginning of the 20th century, banning the hunting of this species allowed their numbers to very slowly recover…until this last decade, which saw unusually high mortality, attributed primarily to human causes (ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear).

On this trajectory, one day, there may be no more North Atlantic right whales. And the planet will be poorer for it.

Read more about the plight of the North Atlantic right whales here.