As my sailing season ends, I have been hearing more and more about the oceanography, and the climate being impacted. So for this week, I decided to blog about a place near and dear to my heart--- the ocean. Ever since I was little, I have built up a passion for the ocean and the life within it. As I browsed the internet, I came across an article about the human impacts on the ocean life all along the West Coast. This drew my attention.
This article explores the dangers of human impact on the top predators such as seals, whales, sea birds, and turtles. There are sanctuaries established along the coast. These are monitored and supervised by various programs and some of the predators, such as the seals, are tagged and their activity is tracked. The University of California, Santa Cruz, are studying the impact that humans have on the predators. The marine life on the coast is so very very important to the ecosystem. This is obvious throughout the article. The sanctuaries are located close to outer marine life and human life, so this issue of human impact did not come as a surprise to the researchers. These associations are trying to reduce human impact on marine life, along with publicizing the issue of sustainability for these sanctuaries and the predators that live within them.
The quote that caught my eye was: "There are five National Marine Sanctuaries along the west coast, covering nearly 15,000 square miles. A proposed expansion of the Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries would extend protections north to Point Arena, a key area identified in the study" and "The relative impact on each species was determined for each of 24 stressors associated with human activities, such as fishing, shipping, climate change, and pollution." I chose these quotes because they reflected how much ocean there is that each of us is effecting.
Seeing as there is one of the biggest marine life population on the West Coast, it alarmed me that there is issues with human impact and made me realize that there are issues within the marine life that are not just about oil spills.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131028090825.htm
There is definitely a huge risk for so many marine animals and especially in Portland it is important that we keep our harbors safe for ocean life. Portland relies heavily on the export of fish and if we dismiss the knowledge that we are killing our fish then we could lose our resource very quickly. It truly is disturbing how we can do such damage to species that have no negative effect on our daily lives.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how exactly are humans effecting marine animals. Obviously oil spills, sewage, and runoff are a huge part of human influence on the ocean, but is there more?
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