Sunday, November 28, 2010

Reefs

Just this past week I got the opportunity to go on a trip to the British Virgin Islands with my camp. As we were walking down to the marina to get on our boat, I noticed lots of shops that sold shells and starfish and coral. I dont know why people would want the dried out, dead version of these objects if they could jump in the water and see them alive. A few days later, my group went on a snorkeling adventure so that we would get the chance to see all the wildlife for ourselves. As soon as we got in, a school of snapper came to investigate us and followed us around for a good hour. Looking down at the coral and fish, you realize that it is really magical the way our earth was created and we shouldn't be digging up that magic just to make a paperweight or something so nonsensical. It was also cool to realize that as curious as we are about the world down there, the fish are just as curious as us about the world above the water. I could see how some of the fish around me just stared and tried to take in all of the human body. We are such foreign creatures to them and even though we never intended to harm them, I felt as if we were trespassing into their world and we needed to be as careful as possible so we didn't ruin anything.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

OIled Bird Conservation Efforts

I just read an extremely disturbing article on the oiled bird debate:

http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2010/06/oiled_birds_to_kill_or_not_to.php


I am sickened by the fact that many people are against wildlife conservation efforts after crises such as this one. There is no ethical reason to why we should just let the birds die because they are “too expensive” to keep washing or it’s “not worth the effort”. I believe that because it is BP’s fault that there are so many animals harmed, so they should be funding organizations that make efforts to save these birds. Why would we be giving up on these animals if it is our fault they were oiled in the first place? Many people are willing to volunteer their time to help wash off oil from the animals, so we should make BP donate money to the cause to make purchases of soap and other materials possible. 

The main part of this article is a woman by the name of Silvia Gaus going on and on about the fact that the birds may not live the longest lives even after they are cleaned because of them ingesting oil or just the stress of the whole event giving the birds health issues. She believes that because of this insecurity, we should just stop all efforts towards assisting the birds in living. Even though it would be all of BP's money going into the funding, she still believes it is money wasted. I really don't like her negative approach to all of this because she is crashing all hopes of people who want to make a difference in this issue. I think that we should still rinse the birds because it is just wildlife wasted if we decide to just let them die. This could lead to a population boom in their prey, throwing off the entire ocean food chain, just because of us giving up on the birds.