Mesmerizing Sea Life

Gillnets, a dangerous mesh gear that indiscriminately kills every animal that has been entangled including turtles and manatees. The size of fish caught can be determined by the size of the mesh, helping to avoid catching juvenile fish. While targeting particular marine species, the gillnets carry the risk of bycatch(When one species is been targeted, the other has been suffered). Off the shore of California, large mesh drift gillnets are been used to catch swordfish which have been killing endangered turtles, whales and other marine species for years. This fishing have been resulted in killing more dolphins off the coast of California than the U.S. West Coast and Alaska fisheries combined. The NOAA fisheries have implemented strict limits known as hard caps, on the number of dolphins, whales and turtles that can be injured in catching swordfish. The Belize Government protected its waters from gillnets. Our essential allies in this battle were many local fishers who understood up close...

Beneath the surface, the ocean is teemed with lot of life rather than any other biodiversity. Corals are the main reason and primary source of life for countless animals. But these reefs have been reached an endangered state because of the human activities. Most of the corals have been wiped out due to pollution, unrealistic fishing activities and climate change. Due to warm water temperatures, corals reach to a stress sate which results in releasing the algae present in their tissues which makes the coral white. This is referred as coral bleaching, but that doesn't mean the coral is dead. A coral can survive a bleaching event, but if the water warms more it results in the dead of the coral. In 2005, most of the corals have been died due to extreme bleaching event. This thermal stress is much greater than compared in all the 20 years. Not only warm waters, even cold waters can result to bleaching. In 2010, cool waters in Florida have been made some serious damage to the coral which...

The coastal California is a place for many abundant animals among which the seven abalone species are most famous. Even this brilliant miniature have sustained native tribes for thousands of years. These species have been nearly wiped out by overfishing, disease and climate changes. Especially, the white and black abalone have been marked as endangered species. There is an evidence that the native tribes would harvest sites, move to new locations when the abalone become scarce. Which gave them a chance to sustain years without depleting. Not only as a food, the shells have been used as tools, coins, as decorative emblems and even as a artifacts. But in the 1700's the Spanish colonizers, gave abalone in exchange of sea otter pelts, which is the primary food source for the species. On a contrary, many sea otter pelts have been killed which made them nearly go extinct. Because adult abalone and their larvae can’t travel very far, they are extremely prone to a phenomenon referred as “s...