short essay about common threats to marine

student 1: I would like to address pollution and vessel strikes. To begin with pollution, I think there ae several strategies to reduce pollution but the problem in the present time is implying the strategies and maintaining them. For instance, the usage of plastic is one of the major causes of pollution both on land and in water and there are several ways people can reduce plastic waste like using reusable bags instead of plastic bags, using metal straws instead of plastic straws etc. Apart from these strategies, I have always thought of how much plastic waste is generated in the toys’ industry. About 80% of plastic toys end up in landfills and I researched about the proposed solutions and there was not a variety of them present. I believe that we could come up with techniques that support recyclable toys and that would help a lot. Regarding vessel strikes, I think that we could come up with technologies that create underwater sounds and use them as warnings for marine animals. One of the major reasons vessels fail to warn marine animals is that their engines have been made in a way to not create sound. This technology can be tied up with some kind of GPS technology that alerts the people in the ship of a potential marine animal in the way of the ship in advance so the procedures to give the warning signal could be initiated.

student 2:The biggest threats to marine diversity according to our discussion board are fishing, entanglement, noise pollution, and vessel strikes. Each one of these problems must have it’s own response, but solving any of these problems will make species more resilient to facing the other issues. In regards to fishing, the global appetite for seafood is likely not going to change or go down. Establishing no-fish zones has been proven to help protect species from overfishing, and then actually increase catch outside the zones. This is likely the best solution to solve overfishing. Entanglement- primarily in fishing gear- is also a huge issue. One way to solve this might be to manufacture fishing lines and nets out of a new kind of material that breaks down after a time, or perhaps to punish fishing businesses for lost nets. Vessel strikes and noise pollution are also very tricky to solve, perhaps a kind of sonar that helps ships avoid striking animals could help reduce strikes. Noise pollution can be made better by electrifying motors, but also perhaps by establishing quiet zones, or quiet hours.

student 3: I think one of the largest and most prominent threats to marine life is noise pollution and boat traffic. There are many efforts being made to deal with problems like overfishing, net entanglements, pollution suffocation etc. But, technology for boats to be less dispruptive to fish, has not been something I have seen be part of the conservation conversation. One of my suggestions to possibly attempt to solve and address this threat/problem to marine life (specifically whales with sonar), is to create solar powered or electrically powered boats and vessels for the sea. Solar power does wonders for noise pollution on land with solar or electrically powered cars, it should solve the same problem in the ocean. Not only would solar or electrical powered vessels solve problems for noise pollution, they would solve a bunch of problems for marine life and trickle down the chain of threats. Electrical or solar power would decrease noise pollution which would make it easier for marine life that use sonar to hunt, communicate, travel, etc. Not only would it help with noise pollution, it would help with pollution period. Marine life suffers due to oil spills from ships every year, oil free ships would decrease risks of a spill taking out yet another threat in the chain of marine life extinction and endangerment. I would also recommend making ocean 'roads' much like land roads for ships, not building or construction of any kind but simply making designated roads for travel along paths of least resistance in the ocean to minimize traffic to marine life. Unfortunately though, there are many kinds of noise pollution besides what powers a ship, sonar from ships, oil rigs etc. But, solar power is a start and should defnitely be considered.

student 4: A threat that I would like to address, and provide a solution to, is the issue of bycatch related to commercial fishing. Large fishing vessels that catch and distribute fish like Polluck, Salmon, or Cod use enormous nets to catch these fish and bring them in. Sadly, many other marine species get caught in these nets as well and are referred to as bycatch. Bycatch as a result of commercial fishing threatens marine life and without strong regulations can endanger certain species and abuse the ocean. Unfortunately, bycatch will exist as long as commerical fishing exists and there are only solutions to reduce the issue. One solution to reduce bycatch are net filters. On certain fishing vessels in Alaska, there are filters in the nets that reduce the amount of bycatch that comes in and only allows for the fish to enter the net. A reason for these filters, and another solution, are the regulations that exist to reduce bycatch. These regulations only allow for a certain amount of bycatch to be taken in the first place. People called observers stay on the boat with the crew and one of their roles is to regulate the bycatch and make sure all the guidelines are being followed. These observers are not a part of the official crew but instead keep the crew in check and try to catch any errors. My suggestion to reduce bycatch is to increase the amount of observers on the boat, as well as their roles related to bycatch, and increase the bycatch regulations world-wide.