World Ocean Day: Battling the Crisis
In May of 2019, a sperm whale washed upon the shores of Italy, its stomach full of plastic, and it wasn’t the first.
The previous month, a pregnant sperm whale washed up on a beach in Sardinia with nearly 50 pounds of plastic in her stomach, killing her and the unborn calf. It wasn’t the overzealous Captain Ahab who brought her, or the whale found a month later, down — it was us. Regular, careless people who haphazardly toss our garbage into the sea or watch apathetically as the wind carries discarded shopping bags into the ocean.
And in the month before that, biologists were forced to euthanize a baby dolphin who had swallowed two plastic bags and shredded a balloon.
Even more alarming, marine scientists have warned us that plastic pollution is far worse for baleen whales than oil spills!
Marine biologists suspect that within thirty years, the oceans’ ecology will collapse. The animals most at risk are the large mammals that cannot be saved by aquariums: blue whales, sperm whales, the giant squid, and other large marine life. Great white sharks as well would eventually die off, as they very seldom thrive in captivity.
It’s not just plastic, either. Our oceans are full of chemicals that animals are basically marinating in on a daily basis, and carnivorous sea creatures are consuming these contaminated fish. We further complicate things through our own fishing industry. As I’ve mentioned in an article before, seafood is in high demand, and our technology and cravings for wild-caught fish mean we’re depleting the ocean environment and out-competing the animals that depend upon these fish, lobster, etc. for their own survival. Many of the wild dolphins seen today by marine biologists and other scientists are reported as being underfed, have high levels of mercury, tumors, and bacteria and viruses that are resistant to antibiotics.
The ocean, especially for those of us who are landlocked and familiar only with freshwater lakes, is something we don’t often worry about. There are more oceans than land masses, so it always seemed way too big to pollute; and since humans live on the land, if we’re going to pick a battle to fight, most of us would rather prioritize battling the way factories pollute our own air long before we worry about some whale swallowing too many plastic bags, or a dolphin whose beak is trapped in those plastic chunks we keep our soda pop in.
Our oceans are very important, however. They are diverse, fantastic areas of our planet, even if only some of us ever dive into them and see what they have in store. They also hold mysteries that we’re just starting to crack.
For example, we know that somewhere in the depths is the colossal squid. We’ve never seen it, but somewhere down there it dwells.
Scientists also believe that marine mammals have language. Now, all animals have communication, but the thing we typically believe is unique to humans is our specialized language. We are animals that can share information with each other through talking, not just by demonstrating as many other species do. We can explain our thoughts and actions in detail, telling others the reasons for doing what we do; we can solve complex problems by sharing our various past experiences and perspectives with one another, and we can develop rich cultures through our ability to tell stories.
According to scientists, dolphins and whales might be able to do this as well. As author James Nestor (video below) puts it, NASA spends hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes millions, in the search for non-human intelligent life in outer space. In reality, that non-human intelligence already exists: it’s in the sea.
Humans have always been fascinated with the stars. Long before we understood how to effectively combat sickness or viewed animals as anything other than free labor and food, we were mapping the stars. The Giza Pyramids are perfectly aligned to the Orion constellation, and a fairly good understanding of the solar system was in place. Our own vast, mysterious planet has always taken a backseat to our curiosity, yet if we bother to look, we can often find ourselves faced with something just as wondrous as that near-miraculous first image of a black hole!
So, what do we do?
Most of us get sick of hearing about things like human-induced climate change, extinction, saving the rain forests, etc. because we feel so helpless personally. We like the convenience of cars and airplanes, enjoy eating meat, panic when the birth rate is falling (looking at you, Japan!), use paper, and are grateful for our plastic bags and food containers. Therefore, we look instead to our politicians, scientists, and corporations to give us alternatives, and if they don’t, we blame everyone from government to oil companies and capitalism.
There are, however, many things we can do! Here’s three you can do either right now or, hopefully, in the near future.
Recycle, Recycle, RECYCLE!
For the love of our planet, recycle your “garbage”! I know, I know, recycling can only take us so far, but it’s far better than the alternative. When I was a kid and my mom first decided we were going to recycle, it was a pain to get used to. I’d rather throw all my used stuff in a single bag and stick it in the can in the driveway than sort it and drive it to a recycling center!
You eventually get used to it, though. Sometimes you’ll have to do something inconvenient in order to buy us a little more time to get our act together and figure out how we’re going to tackle the problems that are staring us in the face!
Stop Bashing Zoos!
Certain self-righteous people have a tendency to hate on zoos. Animals should all be free, living in the wild, where they’re free to walk the many hundreds of miles they have to just to find food, eventually dying painful deaths from starvation, disease, or injury; and spending most of their time struggling for survival.
A lot of us have an idyllic view of the wild, yet most of us don’t want to spend too much time in the wilderness ourselves. Moreover, as I mentioned in a previous article, the wild is rapidly disappearing. This is another problem we’ll have to counter one day, but as it is, most of the wild is micromanaged by humans in a desperate attempt to keep it from disappearing entirely.
Zoos, and even exotic (but responsible, which is the key word here) pet ownership, have been battling to save endangered species for a long time. Many zoos have saved species that were on the brink of extinction! The animals are well-fed and receive medical care. Often times, they live longer in captivity. This isn’t solely because medicine is keeping them alive, but because they have far lower levels of stress, a huge killer in the wild.
“Fine,” I can hear you say, “but the animals shouldn’t be on display!”
Then how are they going to get the money to do their work? Animals on display aren’t necessarily unhappy. Heck, people on display aren’t necessarily unhappy! SeaWorld discovered, remarkably, that dolphins who had just put on a show were far happier, and way more playful than those that hadn’t performed in a while.
Unfortunately, emotionally-charged documentaries, such as Blackfish, have a tendency to rile people up and just wind up hurting the animals they’re trying help. It’s thanks to zoos and places like SeaWorld that we have the understanding of these animals that we do, and thanks to them that people care at all about saving them!
It really sucks, but humans tend to care only about what’s personal to them. Prior to globalization, we were perfectly happy with demonizing our enemies and thinking very little about the pain and suffering of peoples from other nations. In that same way, we could care less about the creatures we share the planet with if we never see them.
The show Jimmy Kimmel, LIVE decided to ask people on the street what they thought of homo sapiens extinction. The humor, of course, was that so many people didn’t realize that homo sapiens were humans, so when they responded that they really didn’t care because homo sapiens weren’t even part of their daily lives, it really gets a laugh! However, it should also prompt some sadness in that we are so willing to let whatever we derive personal enjoyment from die off.
Buy Clean Meat When it Becomes Available
Again, I already did an article on this, but it’s something you seriously need to do. When slaughter-free seafood becomes available and affordable, buy it! It means not competing with a dolphin, orca, shark, or any other predator for food. It’s kind of like giving a homeless person a bagged lunch everyday. It saves someone from excessively worrying about their next meal and feels good. In the case of our oceans, we also aren’t giving anything up.
If buying lab-grown hamburger means we don’t need as many cows and can free up some land for wild animals, then buying lab-grown fish and shellfish will also allow the natural ecosystem of our oceans to thrive.
Remember, we live in a capitalist society, which means that money talks. If you buy cultured meat, more money will be allocated towards developing more variety and better quality food of this kind. Almost all tuna cans make sure to assure the consumer that no dolphins were harmed in the process of fishing for the tuna. This is because people were buying tuna from companies that ensured the safety of dolphins as opposed to those that didn’t care if dolphins got hurt or killed in the process of getting their tuna.
These things aren’t hard to do! They’re very simple and they can make a huge impact not just on our planet right now, but on how quickly politicians and scientists get around to these problems. Of course, you can always donate money to projects and things, but those involve giving something up. I wanted this article to be about things you can do without having to part with much time or money.
Save our oceans, and remember, dolphins and whales might be people, too!