Tag: Environment

Summer n’ Sharks…

NY Summer Arrives.

6/28 Hot with a North wind.

 

Warming waters, plentiful bunker, lots of life, and a gentle northern wind to turn the ocean to glass made for a nice trip.   The dorsal fins of lots of Hammerheads and a few Blue sharks could be seen slicing the clean surface.

  • location – a few miles out of Fire Island Inlet.
  • subjects – Hammerhead and Blue sharks
  • gear – Nikon D810, Tam 150-600mm;  GoPro.  (I really could have used a polarizing filter to cut through the water surface.)

_DSC2924
Cutting through glass…

_DSC2991

_DSC2945

_DSC2952

_DSC2964
Note the elongated, narrow dorsal as opposed to that of the blue shark.

_DSC2984

_DSC3000
Sleek Blue
_DSC3016
Entangled Blue Shark

Blue shark, entangled in rope.  This blue was not boat shy, seemed attracted to the electronics in the GoPro.

 

 

 

On another note, please do not release balloons.  They are making a mess of things.  I filled a hatch without going out of my way, picking the ones in my path.

_balloonsblow

A Plastic Love

for the love of Ocean

Everyone loves the Ocean!   Just kidding… You love disposable plastic more.

We’ve all heard the stories of sea turtles eating plastic bags and balloons, mistaken for jellyfish, and dying as a result. Fish, seabirds, whales, dolphin… all seem to consume plastic, many dying as a result. (44% of seabirds eat plastic by mistake.) But the problem runs deeper. This video is well worth watching:

Plastic breaks down. As opposed to the old idea that plastic is virtually indestructible and lingers for centuries, it does, in fact break down. Through physical and chemical means, it gets broken up into smaller and smaller pieces. These smaller pieces disperse at a local level, basically creating a plastic soup. Most fish and birds can eat the smaller pieces.

To make matters worse, plastic acts as a sponge, sucking up dangerous organic pollutants such as PCP, DDT, BPA, etc. We now are creating toxic plastic soup in the far reaches of the ocean.
Maybe lay off the plastic water bottles for a start???