HUMANKIND'S ATTACK ON THE SEA
LOOK AT THIS FISH'S TAIL. IT APPEARS THAT SOMETHING
MUCH BIGGER THOUGHT THIS 9 TO 10 POUND BLUE WAS A MINNOW BUT
THAT IS THE WAY OF NATURE.
The seas supply food to their own denizens and they
can support humans taking what they need but, as usual, people
take all they can get and, in the process, wreak havoc.
This turtle suffocated....most probably in shrimp nets. It was
one of many that washed up on the ocean beach near a city with a large
fleet of shrimp boats. Conditions have improved over the
years but the damage still exceeds the ability of some species
to survive the onslaught of humankind.
This stingray was dragged in by commercial fishers who use
a boat to spread a very long net out from the beach. They try to return
all the unwanted creatures to the sea but many are too exhausted by the
ordeal to return to the deep and are washed in on the next tide.
This pilot whale also died at the hands of humans. They may
or may not have been commercial or sport fishers. The whale was taken to
a nearby oceanarium where an autopsy was performed. A beer bottle was
found lodged in its digestive tract--the probable cause of death.
Such disregard resulted in reducing early
American herds of 50,000,000 buffalo to merely 20 animals but
greed and insensitivity are not the only problems. Humans have
occupied every inch of ground they have taken from other species
and continue to increase their numbers so that they threaten to
displace and/or eat everything else that lives. Already several
species of fish, once schooling in great multitudes, have become
scarce--with no end in sight.
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