Exploring the Dangers of Marine Life
In every part of the ocean, plastic bags are scattered and floating, bringing harm and danger to marine life. For someone who is already familiar with such scene ignores the filthy view; but someone who has concern to the environment shows responsiveness and finds solution to the grim scenario. Amber Lyon of CNN is just one of those concerned individuals who examined the effects of plastic bags on the ocean. In a recent video uploaded last October 29, 2011 at CNN World site, it presents the exploration of Lyon and other Scientists in the coast of California, doing experimentation on the off-putting effects of plastic bags to marine environment.
Amber Lyon together with her partner in fishing, Marcus Eriksen who has finished PhD in Science Education, dived in the ocean to seek evidences of plastic bags below. They found out that in one plastic bag, ten thousand particles are being speckled causing big amount of litter below the ocean. These plastic bag fragments are being eaten by millions of fish and this carries danger to marine life. Part of Eriksen’s study is the amount and impact of plastic bags in the ocean so as he continues with the experimentation, he got some volume of sea water mixed up with different debris and placed it in a jar. He found out that there are remnants of plastic bags in the water.
According to Marcus Eriksen, remote locations below the ocean which is almost like the size of Texas are trapped with plastic bag debris. This is a tremendous fear to individuals because this might cause the missing of endangered species in the ocean. To prove this, Eriksen brought in three fish which he searched out during his 2008 trip to the great pacific garbage patch. When they investigated the stomach of the fish, they have seen not a plastic bag but a bit of plastic garbage in two of the fish which caused their death. This has confirmed that marine livings eat the scraps of plastic bags and this puts their lives to risk.
Dr. Bill Van Bonn, Director of Veterinary Science at The Marine Mammal Center, was very kind to save the sea lions and dolphins from the dangers in the ocean. According to him, the unseen effects of plastic bags are the main reasons of the unforgivable deaths of these marine creatures. In relation to this, other wildlife animals like birds and turtles, and even whales are killed every year from plastic bag wastes in the marine environment because they often slip-up plastic bags for food such as jellyfish.
It was examined by some scientists that once plastic bags are swallowed by marine species and other animals, these will no longer be digested and this prevent food digestion that will resort to a gradual and excruciating death. Since plastic bags take thousand years to decompose, once these animals die and putrefy after ingesting plastic bags, these plastics will untied back into the marine environment to carry on carnage other wildlife creatures.
