Good morning,
Climate Change
I am in Florida for a summer vacation so my apologies in delivering a few less newsletters than usual. In the mornings I walk a beach that is dotted with turtle nests and is considered one of the most important turtle nesting areas in the World.
What’s striking is how climate change is effecting nesting, because the last two summers were so hot, researchers say many eggs never hatched under unusually hot sands. The turtles of course are already under pressure from plastic pollution, and boat traffic, and predators, and beach lighting which lures new born turtles away from the Atlantic Ocean instead of towards it, and poachers who sell their eggs.
But the heat is creating a new challenge for Green, Leatherback, and Loggerhead turtles. One female turtle will lay up to 7 nests on the same stretch of beach every year but not return for another 2 to 3 years to regain her strength.
And every year less eggs will hatch because of climate change. Also, because the temperature of the sand determines the sex of the hatchlings, hotter summers mean an imbalance in more female turtles and a lack of males.
Researchers have confirmed what millions of Americans and Canadians who just endured scorching temperatures probably already suspected, last month was the hottest June on record in North America.
We are told that an usual number of Manatees have died this year because of starvation, brought on by disappearing seagrass from warmer than usual inland waterways, and also an imbalance in salt vs fresh water due to a release of water from Lake Okeechobee which carried polluted water into the waterways killing seagrass and oysters which the Manatees rely on.
In Tampa Florida, dead eels, dead baby sea turtles, and tons and tons of dead fish have washed up on beaches in June thanks to a phenomenon known as “red tide” — large “blooms” of toxic algae that spread through the water. They can harm sea creatures and even humans. It is unclear why this red tide is so severe, but some suspect it might have been created or super charged when 215 million gallons of nitrogen-rich wastewater made its way into the bay earlier this year from the site of an old fertilizer plant. The algae feed on phosphorus and nitrogen.
So pollution is feeding climate change and directly destroying waterways and oceans. We have to protect fragile eco systems we are losing and permanently damaging.
Have a good day everyone, I am off to walk the beach and rescue a baby turtle if I see one. It will be a female because of the increasingly hot weather.
Dana
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/07/12/red-tide-st-petersburg-dead-fish/
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/north-america-just-experienced-the-hottest-june-ever-recorded/976546?