How You Can Help Reduce Sea Lion Deaths From Debris Entanglements

Please note the following video is disturbing, not only for the images, but also for the statistics and the ease and availablities of solutions. 

Marine garbage is the most visible and easily recognized of all ocean pollution and causes serious damage to marine wildlife. Every year millions of marine animals die worldwide because of this type of pollution (Venizelos, Lily 1998) . The small personal pieces of garbage, casually discarded, are often the most damaging. While some of this trash is left directly on the beach, much of it originates as street litter from coastal and inland cities where it is washed down to the sea through storm water drains and rivers. Some trash, particularly plastics, can last in the ocean for years. There are many different items which make up marine garbage, ranging from large commercial fishing nets which can entangle and maim or kill animals, to small plastic bags that can be mistaken for food and ingested by marine life.

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Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

Choose to buy items with less packaging, which generates less trash.

Use reusable shopping bags.

• Contact manufacturers to let them know that you want to see less packaging used with their products.
• Dispose of the trash you do have correctly. Even if you live far from the ocean, trash can go to the ocean via rivers, causing damage and unsightliness along the way.

Recycle whenever possible.

Discard trash in closed containers.

Keep cutting up those six pack ring-holders. Even if you don't live near the ocean, this lowers the risk of entanglement to marine animals if the ring-holders do make it out to sea.

Take the time to retrieve broken fishing line because these are hazardous for wildlife.

Do not throw cigarette butts in the water or on beaches or in other areas where these may end up in the water. Marine birds or fish may eat them and become ill or die.

Pick up any litter that you may find in the water or along the shoreline and then dispose of it properly.

Participate in coastal and beach clean-up programs.

Avoid flushing items which are not easily biodegradable down the toilet.

If you live near or visit an area which is affected, contact you local government to let them know of the problem and how it negatively affects your area. This will encourage possible legislative changes.

According to See the Sea.org: commercial material transport is also responsible for great volumes of trash being accidentally dumped into the ocean. During foul weather, tankers can lose many large containers that are filled with goods that are being shipped. In 1999, a freighter spill dumped 50,000 pairs of Nike shoes into the Pacific. In 1992, 29,000 bathtub toys packed in 20 giant containers fell off a ship into the Pacific. Dr. Curt Ebbesmeyer of the Beachcombers Organization [www.beachcombers.org] estimates approximately 10,000 containers fall overboard every year, mostly due to storms. Each 8-foot-by-40-foot container can carry up to 58,000 pounds of cargo. (Ebbesmeyer, Curtis C., 1998-2005)