Tag Archives: ecology

World Oceans Day

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World Oceans Day is coming up on Monday (June 8). This years theme is ‘healthy oceans, healthy planet’. It really is just common sense. The oceans cover over 70% of the earth. We all ultimately rely on the ocean for our own health and well being. It’s important to take care of it, if only for our own good. Monday will be a day to remember all the reasons we should respect and care for the oceans, it’s a day to celebrate and get involved too.

The oceans are a major source of food for people (and animals): fish, shellfish, seaweed, plankton, krill, etc. They also help to regulate the climate and keep some of the Northern areas warm in the winter and Southern places cooler in the summer (N hemisphere). The oceans are also extremely important for connecting people around the world. In the USA, 90% of our trade is by sea.

A lot of people make their living directly from the sea like I do. I’ve worked on the water from the time I was a kid. Fishing, recreation (cruising), and transporting cargo from one place to another (a ship is much more efficient than any other form of transport). Now, I work in the offshore oil fields, exploring for and extracting resources from the sea bottom.

If you live near the ocean, like I do, you already know how important it is for your ‘soul’, your mental health, your attitude. I can sit by the sea, listen and watch the waves roll in and it immediately calms me. I like to swim, snorkel, sail, SCUBA dive, surf (not very well), fish, and any other activity that gets me out on the water. 😉

I hope you’ll take a few minutes to think about how you benefit from it and what life would be like without a healthy ocean. Check out a few of the links. Get involved in some of the events if you can. If you can’t get out to any of the events on Monday, remember it doesn’t have to stop on Monday!

There are plenty of things you can do every day to help make things better. Even simple things like talking to people about World Oceans Day, disposing of your trash properly, using as little plastic as possible, not letting balloons fly away loose, etc. It all helps. 🙂 PS- none of the pictures in this post are mine, I got them all of the internet.

Bizarre Barreleye Fish

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Sorry I haven’t been keeping up with the ‘editorial calendar’ I made up for the Blogging 201 challenge. I hope you haven’t been too disappointed. 😉

Here’s something I found online recently with the “Creature Feature”/”Wild Wednesday” in mind.

This has got to be one of the weirdest fish I’ve ever seen. It’s head is transparent! ONLY it’s head is transparent!

There are lots of other sea creatures that are transparent all over, or mostly clear. It makes them less obvious to predators.

Supposedly, the transparent domed head helps this fish steal food from certain types of stinging ‘siphonophores‘ (colonial organisms- one common type is a Portuguese man-o-war).

It’s eyes are INSIDE that dome. What looks like it’s eyes are really it’s nostrils (or close enough). Weird. 🙂

These barreleye fish (or spook fish) live in deep water. This video is one of the first to ‘catch’ one alive. They’ve been caught before, but these types of deep sea creatures are not in the best shape when they come up to the surface. The changes in pressure are usually enough to seriously damage them (if not kill them outright).

I just think its amazing how much we still don’t know about what’s in the water all around us. There are so many beautiful and fascinating creatures out there and we haven’t even scratched the surface.

I think it’s a shame that through our actions we are doing such damage to pretty much everything else on the planet. I would hate to see that continue til it’s too late and we won’t even know all the things we lost.

I do think the other things that share the planet with us have a ‘right’ to be here too. Yes, I do think everything on this planet is here for a reason. Everything is connected. We are all part of the whole.

I think humans are completely unbalancing the entire world. Most of the problems we have to deal with now are the predictable end result of the fact that there are over 7 BILLION people on the planet (and we are STILL increasing that number daily)!

The crowding is not good for us or for anything else that has to share the planet with us. We are NOT the be-all and end-all of everything. Too bad most of us think we are. 🙁

Slaughterhouse Said to Process “Horrifying” Number of Whale Sharks Annually

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Slaughterhouse Said to Process “Horrifying” Number of Whale Sharks Annually.

 

Well, here it is again already: Wild Wednesday (Creature Feature). I’ve been so busy, I haven’t really had time to keep up with things here as much as I’d like to. I’m working nights (1800-0600) and for some reason that schedule just really keeps me messed up. I’m always SO tired. 🙁

I saw this article and thought it would make a good one to post here. First of all because I’ve always really liked these giant fish. They’re so big, but they never bother anybody. They grow up to about 40-45 feet long and yet they only eat plankton. They’re one of the longest lived sharks, they can live up to 100 years!

I’ve always wanted to do a trip where I could swim, snorkel or SCUBA with them. I think that would be something really special. I see the pictures of people doing it and it just looks fantastic. They are just awesome! 🙂

I hate to think of people just catching these fish and slaughtering them willy-nilly, even though they are endangered. Most sharks and rays are now on the endangered species list. 🙁

I know a lot of people probably think: ‘good riddance’, but sharks and rays are actually beautiful creatures and are very well adapted to their environments. There are over 470 species of sharks and rays.

They live in every ocean, from the surface to the depths. They’ve been around for over 420 million years! There are some very interesting stories about sharks (I loved Jaws). They have interesting lives.

 

They have interesting history with people around the world. The Hawaiians were just one people who worshiped a shark god. People do seem fascinated with sharks.

Maybe it’s because they can (and sometimes do) eat us? 😉

They’re one of the very few animals that we ever feel even slightly threatened by anymore. Although there were only 4.3 on average unprovoked fatalities from shark attacks worldwide (2001-2006).

Hopefully that fact will quell some fear and we won’t allow the indiscriminate killing to continue. It’s estimated that over 100 million sharks are killed EVERY YEAR!

Sharks serve a purpose in this world. Just like every other living thing on this planet. They deserve to have a place here just as much as we do and we really ought to stop killing off every other thing around us just because we can.

One of these days those kinds of actions WILL come back to bite us.

Maybe with shark teeth. 😉