Rescued seals fly home

[Catherine]

I love a happy ending.
A number of baby Monk seals were found alone and starving last year. They have been recovering at a marine mammal rescue centre ever since.  They have finally grown and recovered and are ready to go home. Monk seals are very endangered and only live in a small part of the world, Hawaii. These seven female seals could boost the entire seal population by their survival.

So they are being flown home in style.
https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&...YMGYp3qMQQ

This is the biggest release of monk seal so far.   They give real hope to the survival of the species.

Now we need to figure out why so many marine mammals are being found alone and starving. Many are not as lucky as these girls.

[Ruth]

That is a good program they have going for the monk seals. They are beautiful animals. Yes, they need to resolve why they are found starving. Maybe not enough fish to eat? IDK.

[Catherine]

There is definitely a lack of fish. We have caused that by over fishing and pollution and all the other horrible things we do to the ocean.
The garbage in the ocean alone is enough to cause a problem. We need to see the monk seals as a warning that things are not going well for the oceans. Since the majority of the planet is oceans we should see that as a very bad thing.

[Ruth]

I don't know what it is going to take for people to wake up to this problem. Seems they don't care about anyone but their selves.

[Catherine]

We need to wake up to the fact that the oceans are in trouble. If we don't there will be consequences for the whole planet.

The seals are doing us a favour by warning us.

[Tobi]

It's wonderful that these Seals were rescued.
But behind this is a cause, and we had better start to do something about it. Are they starving because their food supplies are non-existent or low in the areas where they usually go?

Or is there some other reason? My thought is it's probably over-fishing by humans, or pollution which may be the cause. I heard today that sunscreens are affecting/killing off the coral reefs (I know that is a different subject, but what we do and think nothing of, eventually affects marine life if toxins get into the water in massive quantities.) Not all sunscreens have that effect, only the toxic chemical based ones.

[Catherine]

There is going to be a link between what we do, how it effects the ocean and the fact that the seals nearly starved.

Sunscreen is bad and so are microbeads. We are doing so much to damage the oceans. We need to change our behavior and we need to find a way to reverse the damage.

It is just lucky that they were able to save these baby seals. If we keep up our destructive behavior there will be more seals to rescue next year.