Save Our Ocean
Our ocean is in trouble. It makes up 71% of our Earth and is dying. Plastic, agricultural runoff, overfishing, and climate change are only some of the issues destroying habitats and killing marine life. In the past few decades, there have been large-scale coral bleaching events killing masses of coral reefs across the globe. Corals rely on photosynthesis for 90% of their energy provided by symbiotic zooxanthellae which are microscopic organisms that live inside of the coral polyp. When the temperature of the seawater rises, the zooxanthellae are expelled from the coral leaving the coral to perish. This is influenced by the ocean’s ability to absorb the majority of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The dissolved carbon dioxide in the ocean changes the pH by reacting with seawater. When the pH is altered, organisms who create shells such as snails, crabs, mussels, oysters, scallops, shrimp, etc. become deformed and cannot survive.
Besides climate change, the fishing industry is destroying the ocean. Fishing sustainably is nearly impossible because of the advanced technology in the industry. They know exactly where fish are always. Many fish species such as bluefin tuna, Atlantic cod, halibut, Atlantic salmon, sea bass, sturgeon, etc. have nearly been fished to extinction. The fishing industry is also responsible for over 40% of the plastic pollution in the ocean. This gear floats around “ghost” fishing and killing everything it encounters until removed. It is nearly impossible to recover lost fishing gear because of the inability to track it down.
We are the ones that must stop the ocean from dying. It is predicted that the ocean will go fishless by 2050. A fishless ocean means there would be no vital stocks of top predatory fish left. There still would be the small fish, but large fish such as sharks, tuna, marlin, swordfish, mahi mahi, wahoo, etc would not be around. This would be horrible and destroy ecosystems across the globe. Linked below are sources that are extremely helpful learning more about these issues at hand. It is time to sea change 🌊
Sources to check out: