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During a Patagonian winter in Peninsula Valdes, Argentina, Stephanie Stefanski explored an unusual ecological threat: gull attacks on whales.

The kelp gull population in Peninsula Valdes has grown exponentially over the last twenty years, fueled by open-air waste dumps and fishery discards – the byproducts of urban growth. The burgeoning gull population has even adopted a new food source: the flesh and fatty blubber of living southern right whales, an endangered species still recovering after two hundred years of intensive whaling.

Now researchers and conservationists are faced with the dilemma of managing this problem. Some want to see the gull population culled or controlled directly, while others advocate for a better waste management system. These two approaches illuminate broader questions about environmental perceptions and priorities: should conservationists focus on that which is more direct and immediate, or pursue more structural and complex solutions?

Regardless of the solution, the gravity of the situation is clear: the number of young whales and mothers bearing crater-like wounds from the gulls are growing, as are the deaths amongst whale calves.

Edited by Noah Sokol