Kids Newsletter: Second Edition

How Do Plastic Straws Hurt The Sea? Stage 1 – Making the Straw To make plastic straws we have to drill into the bottom of the sea and pump out horrible black oil. We then turn this oil into plastics used for straws. The problem with this is that the bottom of the sea is where our favourite sea animals …

Your Carbon Footprint Is Reducing the Size of Your Fish and Chips

Many ectothermic marine animals that respire underwater are under strain from increasing sea water temperatures as a result of climate change. In this blog post I will be outlining how human impacts have led to a global increase in sea water temperatures, resulting in an overall decrease in body size of many fish and therefore …

Plastic Bags The Scourge Of Turtles Everywhere

Sea turtles are one of the most beautiful and enigmatic creatures found within our seas, however despite this most species are endangered, primarily green turtles (Chelonia mydas), loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) and leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea). All of these species are now in danger of becoming extinct due to human impacts on their habitats, life cycle …

What is El Niño and How are Human Impacts Affecting it?

The El Niño year is an inter-annual affect, which naturally occurs, where the Earth experiences increase warming. The cause of this is affect is strong and intensive interactions between the surface of the oceans and the atmosphere. Warm water heats the atmosphere around it; this causes the warm air to rise and cool air to …

How Killer Algae is Destroying Our Marine Environment

Invasive species sometimes known as marine pests are species that have migrated from their natural habitat to new foreign habitat. The movement of these species are usually a result of human activities by a wide range of means; including ballast water being discharged by commercial ships, aquaculture operations, bio-fouling on hulls and inside internal seawater …

“NO” TO PLASTIC STRAWS

Disclaimer: This contains distressing images and possibly inappropriate language. The video below shows a graphic removal of a straw from the nasal passageway of an Olive Ridley turtle by a collective of scientists in Costa Rica. It is believed that the straw had been accidentally ingested by the turtle and forcefully throw up resulting its deposition in the aforementioned …

How Invasive Lionfish Are Destroying Coral Reefs

Coral reefs are one of the most complex ecosystems on the planet, and every creature that lives on them has a role to play however when these creatures start being eaten this is bad news for the reef. There are currently two species of lionfish destroying western coral reefs in the Bahamas and Caribbean Pterois …

How Hurricanes Affect Our Coral Reefs

Hurricanes are an extreme weather phenomenon that occurs over primarily warm oceans. Hurricanes not only cause devastation on land, but also cause widespread destruction to shallow marine ecosystems (such as coral reefs) too. When hurricane Irma hit the Caribbean and The Florida Keys in September 2017, coral reefs were left devastated (it is to be …

The Impacts Your Plastic Straws Have On Our Ocean Planet

Plastic straws are one of the many types of plastics polluting and harming our wildlife. Humans have been using drinking straws for over 7000 years now. They come in a wide range of colours, shapes, lengths and are used worldwide. Americans use 500 million drinking straws every day for an estimated time of about 20 minutes …

The Future of the Oceans – Blue Planet II

The following video is a short extract from Blue Planet II, and is a synopsis of the human impacts on our marine environment. It is a collaboration of many scientists and many scientific bodies that discuss the possible outcomes and effects occurring right now that will continue to happen if we do not act soon. …