Americans are horrified about the wildlife harmed by the BP Gulf disaster: Official count yesterday was 1,300 dead or injured. Watching the oil-saturated birds suffering in videos physically turned my stomach. We know from Exxon Valdez that recovery rates are a small percent of the actual number of injured and dead wildlife, and this BP disaster is far from over.
But, what about the harm from oceans filled with plastic bottles that are petroleum products? The swirling garbage gyres in the ocean look like a bomb exploded with varying sizes of plastic "shrapnel" that will kill wildlife.
Each year globally plastic "kills more than 1 million sea birds and 100,000" whales, dolphins and seals. This is one issue where we can save lives by changing consumption patterns even if the government and corporations won't take action.
Tonight's EcoAdvocates edition includes posts by Oke on Marine Mammal Rescues, and Ellinorianne on Remembering Lily by Protecting Gray Whales. |
Eighty percent of the plastic in oceans originates onshore and travels from littered streets and landfills by wind to waterways or storm drains to the ocean. Plastic in the ocean is concentrated in gyres, which are rotating or converging ocean currents that "keep the trash swirling in a giant whirlpool." The North Pacific Ocean Gyre or "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" is 10 million square miles large, extending from the California Coast to China and thus larger than the continental U.S.. The gyre is not a "solid floating trash heap visible from the air," but rather "billions of tiny plastic scraps bob on the water's surface along with occasional larger pieces like fishing gear, wood, bottles, toothbrushes and cigarette lighters."
The plastic does not biodegrade but prolonged exposure to sunlight breaks it down into smaller pieces that are the size of plankton, the food of choice for many fish. There is now 6 times as much plastic as plankton in the garbage patches. And these tiny plastic flecks and particles the "size of a grain of rice" are toxic: "PCBs, DDT and other toxic chemicals cannot dissolve in water, but the plastic absorbs them like a sponge."
The problem is the plastic particles look like food: the jellyfish, squid, fish eggs, and plankton and so the plastic is eaten by the fish, birds and other critters, entering the food chain.
The plastic kills wildlife and marine life. Plastic kills by entanglement, "choking throats and gullets and clogging up digestive tracts, leading to fatal constipation." Turtles die from choking or internal blockages when they eat jellyfish intertwined with plastic. It kills when plastic sinks to the bottom of the ocean where it smoothers marine life. The young are killed by parents regurgitating plastic down the necks of their fledglings.
The plastic also kills by starvation, toxicity and chocking when albatross chicks are fed plastic. (more photos at link by Chris Jordan)
This is a disturbing video showing Chris Jordan's pictures and the plastic horrors done to our wildlife and marine critters:
Most experts agree that removal of these tiny pieces of plastic is "impossible" and thus the focus should be on prevention.
Rwanda has banned plastic bags due to environmental hazards. While some cities and towns have restrictions on plastic bags, California might be the first state to ban plastic bags in a bill that passed the Assembly this week and now moves to the Senate.
For more information, please check out: Charles Moore and the Algalita Marine Research Foundation and 5 Gyres – Understanding Plastic Marine Pollution Through Exploration, Education and Action.
UPDATE: Please check out citisven's diary, just posted, called Bye Bye Plastic Bags that provides more details about proposed California law to ban plastic bags.
Marine Mammal Rescues by Oke
My first love was the Atlantic Ocean, then in December I came to the West Coast and discovered the wild, roaring, surf of the Pacific Ocean.
It wasn't until I was in my late forties that I found one thing I could connect to and find total peace within seconds; the oceans.
I spend every moment on the coast that I can, walking, biking, taking photos, collecting sea glass. (A passion my daughters roll their eyes at.)
Appreciation for our oceans was embedded in me even as I grew up landlocked, in the Midwest. No matter where we live, we're all connected to the oceans.
On April 30th, while on a bike ride, I stopped at Montero Beach for photos and a stretch. I found this young Harbor Seal laying in the sand.
Every animal loving instinct in me wanted to run up, pet this little one, and comfort it.
In this case the fliers that The Marine Mammal Rescue Center post weren't a waste of paper. I had read it, knew not to disturb it, or touch it. If it wasn't for this non-profits' efforts and education, this Midwest transplant would have been clueless and harmed, not helped.
The MMC also has a pocket reminder of what you can do when you encounter a stranded Marine Mammal. (pdf file)
The thing is, seals make lousy pets.
The Marine Mammal Center covers 600 miles of California coast. It's mission isn't limited to CA, there is a nation wide network.
We all share a connection with marine mammals and the ocean! The Save Our Seals - Save Ourselves campaign inspires all of us to care about marine mammals because we all share and rely upon a vast resource - the oceans.
Even those who are thousands of miles from the coast can help with marine rescue.
Skip one latte and feed a seal for half a day!!
Dollar-a-Pound Challenge
$1 = 1 pound of fish
$10 = 1 meal for 1 pup
With the disaster BP has caused, donations for resources for marine rescue are vital to keep up with the demand.
On June 8th, World Ocean Day, we received a courtesy call back from the MMC in Marin County, CA. The seal that we'd reported that day had been rescued after it was determined to have been abandoned and ill. On May 10th it was released back into the ocean.
Yesterday was a liberating day for some other seals and sea lions, too.
Remembering Lily by Protecting Gray Whales
by Ellinorianne
Lily the Gray whale died on a Southern California afternoon in Dana Point. She was young and had traveled for about 5,000 miles with a gil net and other items tangled on her body, from her tail fin to her mouth.
This whale swam into the Dana Point Harbor and she raised many questions, was she older or younger, why was she covered in so much lice and barnacles and what made her come to us?
During a tribute I attended for Lily this past Sunday Morning, Tracey Engelking told the story of Lily coming to her and going under her board and it seemed as if she was trying to bring her tail up to show her that there was something wrong.
It was endearing how this woman, trying to hold back tears, spoke of how she wasn't political at all and felt that maybe she might be seen as a bit crazy, but she felt this whale was trying to tell her something. And it was then she realized, as she shared the water with this magnificent girl, that her tail was caught in this awful mess of nets.
When she finally gave up, when her will to live had been lost, I was there at the time, I had also been drawn to her, it was the strangest thing. I showed up about the same time she beached herself.
Barry Curtis was also there when Lily washed up on the beach and he said he could tell that her tail was broken, that she had been swimming slowly and with only her flippers, lingering around the Dana Point Harbor, where people had helped her.
And she did bring so many people out to see her.
And we wanted this special whale, who did not die alone, to matter, to make people aware that her death could bring awareness to the plight of not only her life, of her species but that of the oceans.
And to think that Lily could have been one of those baby gray whales born in the warm waters of Baja, brought to people in their small boats and presented to them to be touched and kissed. To be introduced to human beings by their trusting mothers.
Now the California State legislature and the Dana Point City Council urge the Federal Government to do a study of the Gray Whale population to see if they should be put back on the endangered species list because they have not been show up in their usual spots as they have in past years, according to the California Gray Whale Coalition.
We cannot allow whaling to continue, nor can we allow the commercial whaling to make a come back.
The International Whaling Commission is meeting at the end of June and they will decide on whether commercial whaling will be legal and come under control of the IWC as a compromise with the current whaling Countries. The piece linked is by the Chairman of the IWC and he outlines the proposal he put forth to be voted upon by all participating nations in the IWC.
Starting point
The most essential ingredients of the potential compromise that the vice-chair and I presented seven weeks ago are these:
- all whaling to be brought under IWC control for a 10-year period, with countries agreeing not to go hunting unilaterally under provisions such as "scientific whaling" and to abide by quotas set by the IWC
- quotas to be set considerably lower than current levels
establishment of a comprehensive set of control measures, such as observers on ships, and DNA registers of harvested whales and market sampling to detect and deter illegal whaling
- whaling only permitted by the three countries already doing it (Iceland, Japan and Norway)
- subsistence hunting by indigenous peoples unaffected
Some take-action items:
Stopping Murkowski's effort to bar EPA from regulating GHG pollution:
Organizing for America: Stand up for Clean Energy – Write your Senators
Credo Action: Call your senator: Oppose Murkowski’s Clean Air Act attack
Whaling:
Greenpeace: Call for an end to whaling by writing to Japan's Foreign Minister
Cleaning up plastic Oceans:
Ocean Conservancy: You can use its search tool to find cleanup sites for waterways and ocean in your area.
Tell your senators to pass energy legislation that will prevent future oil spills by clicking on link in video:
EcoAdvocates is a new series initiated by Meteor Blades and Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, who are contributing editors. This series focuses on providing more effective political pressure and taking action on environmental issues.
Contributing writers provide a diversity of perspectives including wind/energy/climate change; water; agriculture/food; mountaintop removal mining/coal; wildlife; environmental justice; and indigenous/human rights/civil rights. Contributing writers include: Bill McKibben, Jerome a Paris, mogmaar, boatsie, Aji, rb137, Ellinorianne, faithfull, Oke, Jill Richardson, Patric Juillet, Josh Nelson, beach babe in fl, Ojibwa, Muskegon Critic, Desmogblog, A Siegel, gmoke, DWG, citisven, mahakali overdrive and FishOutofWater.