Learning about seals and how some of them are endangered

The reasons for numbers of sea creatures declining are all thought provoking.

Often they get entangled in disused fishing nets and they also suffer from the effects of overfishing i.e. limited food availability.

Read the full article here and see photo's http://www.mcbi.org/what/monk_seals.html

Find out how you can help...

Today, the Hawaiian monk seal is critically endangered and headed toward extinction.

Reasons for the decline of the monk seal include: overfishing, limited food availability, entanglement in marine debris, habitat loss, shark predation, competition for food, aggressive male behavior, deaths of pups, an aging population, harmful algal blooms, and global climate change.

Our oceans and overfishing

This a very good, easy to watch movie to watch. Its so interesting.

Its very important that people see it and understand what bad things are going on. If people dont know whats happening then they think it is not happening BUT it is!




What do your think about:

• Trawlers? These are big boats that bulldoze the bottom of the sea and damage everything just looking for what they want. Is it a terrible way to "fish" and should it be illegal.
• Thinking carefully what you buy and eat.
• people moving away from their appetite for prawns if this is causing a lot of problems.
• things like shark fin soup where the shark gets dumped back in the sea after having its fin hacked off and only the fin eaten in soup.
• Nets and stuff that trap loads of poor sea creatures and birds :(
• huge fishing vessels that take tons and tons of fish with sophisticated methods.
• those that discard most of their catch. Its already dead but they don't want it so they throw it away. Is this a waste?

Some ideas
Should everything should be used that is caught ?

Should there be limits on what is caught?

Should there be an organisation that sets offical standards for fishing like fair trade or organic produce i.e. ethics and regulates if the catch can be sold: where they fished, how they fished, how much they caught etc.

• That way the fishing industry will be forced to act in a good way. Less cruelty, staying in their own waters, being responsible for their nets