Sea Lion rescued from ocean garbage

[Catherine]

We have talked about how our oceans are littered with garbage. We know many sea animals are injured and killed each year.
For one tangled Sea Lion there was a happy ending.

http://www.kelownanow.com/watercooler/ne..._Sea_Lions

It is not an easy job to free a wild animal that is tangled like that. You have to admire the dedicated people who saved her. Now if only we could save the oceans from garbage.

[Cibach]

For as long as man has sailed the oceans he has discarded rubbish overboard without a thought. We pump our sewage into the ocean and our fertilisers and chemicals run off into rivers and end up in the sea. Out of sight, out of mind. But we have to stop. The ocean isn't our home, but it is home to so many species and their lives are being endangered by us. We will be judged on how we treat "lesser" species (not a good choice of word, I know, but how many see them). One day WE may be the lesser species in some other creatures eyes and will have to rely on their goodwill. I only hope our record improves.

[Catherine]

You are so right. We seem to think that water is a magic waste disposal unit. People dump into the oceans, they dump into the lakes and they dump into the rivers. People here flush things that are toxic and are surprized to find that our lake is now full of the toxic things they flushed. Where did they think that the water is going. I is treated, but not that well. There are limits to what can be filtered out.

Our storm sewers go straight to the lake and people think nothing of dumping waste into them. The lake drains into a river, that drains into and ocean.

Maybe we need to teach waste management and water cycles to children in kindergarten so that they grow up understanding. If we don't do something it will be more than a few seals that are in trouble.