We have a project due in 3 weeks in my oceanography class. We have to pick a topic that interests us and explain how it relates to 2 of the three branches of oceanography. I've chosen how littering and ocean dumping effects the plants and animals along the coast. Here's what I have so far....whaddya think?

As an environmentalist and animal lover, I am very concerned with how both are continually being mistreated. Our beaches look clean and beautiful, and ocean-dwelling animals seem happy and healthy, but why are so many wetlands and species being destroyed? These are some of the ways littering and the dumping of trash into the oceans are “helping” to diminish our coast and coastal animals.

Littering
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Ocean Dumping
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This problem is much bigger than some may think. Not only does it damage beautiful and exotic creatures and plants, but it affects we humans as well. If polluting the earth doesn’t stop, the fish that many people eat will become either distinct or so contaminated with toxic waste that thousands of people in the fishing business will be without jobs.* Also, the people who eat these fish could become violently ill from the waste.

* As a vegetarian, this actually doesn’t bother me, but this is my feeble attempt at being objective.

### - I will explain the cause & effects of these two kinds of pollution once I've done a bit more research. :) I'm also going to explain ways to help prevent this distaster.

I think it's an excellent idea for a project. I live near the coast and we have a sailboat. My DH often tells me about the crap he finds out there. :roll:

I saw a special presentation once on PBS I believe. It was about how a large shoreline facility was responsible for unleashing the overgrowth of an aquatic plant. The green plant was used in their fish tanks, and was somehow disposed into the ocean. The plant took root at the shore, and overtook the ocean floor, destroying other plant life, and causing the death of marine animals that depended on the plants that were destroyed. So heartbreaking.

Shandeh, thanks for that info! I'm going to look that up to add to my report! :D

I don't know if it'd fit into your project, but I've always been interested in the investigations going on to determine what the effects of the military use of sonar has on whales and dolphins and such.

I've read some things and watched some things over the years and it still bugs me. Probably always will... :shrug:

* As a vegetarian, this actually doesn’t bother me, but this is my feeble attempt at being objective.[/i][/size]


It should bother you simply because of what it does to the planet's oceans and creatures. I think your research will help with that.

Shandeh, thanks for that info! I'm going to look that up to add to my report! :D

I found the online PBS article (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3008_algae.html) about the TV presentation I watched. You can order the video for $19 if you want.

Here's the paragraph about the institution they believe is to blame for the Meditteranean ocean invasion of Caulerpa taxifolia:

It wasn't long before people realized that if the findings were right, the most obvious source of the alien invasion was the Monaco Oceanographic Museum itself.

The museum was known to have had taxifolia in its tropical tanks and was also directly above the site of the first known infestation. Yet to suggest that the museum was even unwittingly responsible carried huge political and scientific implications. It meant the institute had somehow unknowingly allowed material from its aquarium tanks to get into the sea. Even worse, the most likely time for all this to have happened was in the early 1980s when the museum had been run by a man with an international reputation for marine research, Jacques Cousteau.

For years he'd been the father of French marine biology, a hero of marine conservation. The irony was that to accuse the Monaco Museum of even accidentally releasing a rogue seaweed into the sea, was to hold some of the most famous names in marine conservation responsible for what many now regarded as an ecological disaster. The museum flatly denied any link between the taxifolia in its tanks and the taxifolia below its walls and questioned the validity of the DNA findings.

I'm sorry, but my kids say I have a real problem with correcting people... In your finishing paragraph (on your paper) shouldn't it be extinct not distinct?

Just a thought.... I never finished school, so I could be waaay wrong!

Good subject BTW... my oldest DD won't let me throw away those plastic rings for pop unless I break them first..... she doesn't want the little critters to get hurt.

OMG I didn't even realise I typed that! Woops! Hahah!