🌊 Endangered Oceans 🌊

Welcome to Endangered Oceans!

This website was a personal project I worked on to help educate people about a cause I care a lot about--our oceans and their creatures. Our oceans were once so healthy and beautiful, like the image above. Now though, our oceans have become choked with oil, chemicals, plastic, and other pollutants, and the plants and animals within them are dying as a result, so that now our planet's waters look more like oceans of plastic.

❕About the Crisis❕

Billions of pounds of plastic, glass, oil, fertilizer, and other pollutants enter the ocean each year. Some of this trash will end up washed up on the beaches; some will be eaten by marine animals, and the rest will accumulate in large patches to confuse and strangle fish, turtles, birds, and other marine life.
The majority of these pollutants sadly end up in our ocean because of human activities. Overfishing, oil spills, over-fertilization, careless throwing of bottles out a window--all of these things cause harm to our oceans. With every ounce of fuel burned and pollution pumped into the air, our oceans become sicker and sicker. The planet warms with increased amounts of carbon dioxide, and as the ocean warms with it, algaes the protect coral habitats die, the corals become bleached and die, habitats are ruined, and animals have to migrate to a safer, more comfortable environment. With warming also comes increased acidification (carbon dioxide dissolving into oceans to form carbonic acid) caused by excess carbon dioxide from the environment, which disrupts coral and shell growth.
Perhaps the most noticable and tragic outcome of this pollution, however, is seen in marine life. Plastic bottles, bags, and fibers resemble jellyfish (a favorite dinner for sea turtles) and give off a scent like that of natural food, and as a result often end up being eaten and subsequently becoming tangled in animals' stomaches, resulting in a sad, painful death. Many dying or dead marine animals wash up on our beaches now because of plastic they ingested or became ensnared in.

Statistics📊

"Land-based sources (such as agricultural run-off, discharge of nutrients and pesticides and untreated sewage including plastics) account for approximately 80% of marine pollution, globally" ("Facts and Figures on Marine Pollution").

More than 220 million tons of plastic are produced each year.

In 2006, the United Nations Environment Program estimated that every square mile of the ocean contians approximately 46,000 pieces of floating plastic.

"Plastic debris causes the deaths of more than a million seabirds every year, as well as more than 100,000 marine mammals" ("Facts and Figures on Marine Pollution").

Single use plastic generates more than 8 million tons of waste in the ocean each year. ("UN Environment: Meet the UN Agency Protecting the Only Planet We've Got").

Ocean water covers more than 70% of the earth.

The amount of plastic in the Atlantic Ocean alone is more than three times what it was in the 1960s.

The enormous garbage patch currently floating in the Pacific covers almost 620,000 square miles--more than two times the size of Texas.

How to Help

Now that you know more about what is happening to our oceans, it's time to learn what *you* can do to help take care of them!

Low-Involvement Volunteering Activities

• Stay informed! Subscribe to email newsletters from organizations who work to clean our oceans and help marine life, such as 4Ocean !
• Vote responsibly. Stay informed on important issues, and use your vote to help choose the best candidate or solution, and sign petitions for bills you believe in!
• Spread awareness through word-of-mouth, social media, art--whatever your chosen medium is. Share information, campaigns, etc. with friends and family, encourage donations in place of birthday presents, and help raise awareness for ocean issues.
• Use your "consumer spending powers." Support businesses that employ substainable, environment-safe practices, and [punish] businesses that do not. For example, avoid buying make-up that contains shark squalene and jewelry made from coral or a sea turtle's shell--while they may be pretty, items such as these are the products of unsustainable fishing practices and harm ecosystems.
• Do your best to reuse plastic products, or replace them with more sustainable materials. By just refilling your water bottles (or using a washable one), and switching to cloth grocery bags, you can keep large amounts of plastic out of our oceans and landfills. Plastic debris in the ocean resembles food to many marine animals, and eating it caused them to choke and their digestive systems to become clogged, leading to starvation, suffering, and eventual death.
• Properly dispose of hazardous materials such as motor oil. Oftetimes hazardous materials aren't disposed of properly, and end up polutting the oceans and harming the overall health of the creatures in it. By taking the time to dispose of hazardous materials in an environmentally safe way, you can help our oceans stay healthy.
• Reduce water usage. Instead of taking a long shower and letting gallons go down the drain, try to take shorter showers,
• Use fertilizer sparingly. Excess fertilizer often ends up in the ocean, creating a "dead zone" in which marine life cannot get enough oxygen to live. `
• Reduce your energy use. Not only will it save you money, but it will also save our coral (which provides essential habitats to fish) from destruction by ocean acidification caused by burning of energy. You can easily reduce your energy usage by turning off applicances if you're not using them and using high-efficiency [appliances].
• If you go to the beach and see turtle nests or other marine life, don't disturb it--especially if there are signs warning people away. The signs are there to protect the animals from being accidentally hurt by being fed the wrong food by a well-intentioned human, having their eggs stepped on, etc.
• Reduce your light pollution. Excess light confuses animals and interferes with migratory and breeding patterns (as well as wastes energy, makes it difficult for motorists to see, and can interfere with human metabolism and sleep)! You can reduce your impact by reducing unnecessary outdoor lighting; by just turning off your porch light if you're not on your porch, you can help wildlife.

High-Involvement Volunteering Activities

• Gather a group of friends together for a few hours to do a beach clean-up. By just spending a few hours picking up bottles, plastic bags, cans, etc., you're helping to keep our ocean clean and the animals in it alive while having a good time with your friends.
• Contact your representative. After researching ocean issues, if you feel that your representative is voting in ways that harm the ocean, let them know! Although our representatives try their best to have all the facts before they vote, they may not be aware of the impact on the ocean or its animals. The job of the government is to serve the people--so let them know what you care about!
• Start a club for fellow ocean-lovers! Creating a group of people to discuss ocean issues with, swap research, and volunteer with is a great way to learn more and get a lot done while having fun and meeting new people! You could have speakers from your local marine hospital or aquarium, host fundraising activities for an organization such as 4Ocean , or gather together to volunteer at a local marine hospital.
• Volunteer! Places like Mote Marine Labratory & Aquarium are always in need of volunteers to help with rescues, cleaning tanks, fundraising, and so much more!

Donating

The "Donate Now" button below links to the donation page for one of my favorite ocean clean-up organizations, 4Ocean, but there are so many organizations out there that could use your donation to help clean our oceans and/or save marine life! Below I compiled a list of a few well-known, trust-worthy organizations I like, but feel free to search out your own you can't find one you can get behind--just be sure to do your research and make sure they're legitimate!

• The Ocean Cleanup
• The Ocean Legacy Foundation
• The Ocean Conservancy
• The Surfrider Foundation
• Ocean Blue Project
• Project AWARE
• The Bahamas Plastic Movement

Sources and More Resources

• Oceana - "10 Things You Can Do to Save the Oceans"
• The Ocean Cleanup - "How can I help the Ocean Cleanup as an individual?"
• Mental Floss - "15 Things You Can to Help Keep Oceans Clean"
• Macgillivray Freeman's One World, One Ocean Campaign
• Treehugger - "5 Ways You Can Reduce Light Pollution"
• UNESCO - "Facts and Figures on Marine Pollution"
• The Ocean Legacy Foundation
• Ocean Conservancy
• The Surfrider Foundation
• Ocean Blue Project
• Project AWARE
• The Bahamas Plastic Movement
• Better World Campaign - "UN Environment: Meet the UN Agency Protecting the Only Planet We've Got"
• NOAA - "Ocean Pollution"
• Huffpost - "The Five Biggest Threats to Our Oceans"
• National Geographic - "Marine Pollution, Explained"

About Me

Hey there 👋! My name is Maggie, and I'm the creator of this website!
I am a college junior who, in her very little free time, enjoys writing and reading, working out, volunteering (check out the organizations I work for on Instagram! On the H.O.M.E. Front, Sunny with a Change, and the National Society of High School Scholars ), and hanging out with my two llamas, Chewy and Gold Rush.
Some of my titles include:
🙇‍♀️ Student
👩‍⚖️ Advocate
👱‍♀️ Volunteer
👩‍💻 Author
👩‍🎓 NSHSS Ambassador
👸 Barbizon Graduate
👩‍💻 (Soon to be) SheCodes Graduate
💃 Aspiring Model & Actress

I created Endangered Oceans with the goal of educating people about the cause I care so much about--the ocean and its wildlife. I live near one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and as a frequent visitor I've seen the ocean's beauty and a small fraction of the amazing creatures within it. Ever since I was a young child, I've been fasinated with water and its creatures--my family had to visit the aquarium at least once a month just so I could see my favorite sharks, stringrays, and anemones again. Now, I work to preserve the experiences that I once took for granted, and with Endangered Oceans I hope to encourage all of you to become as enamored with our oceans as I am.

Coded by: Maggie Jordan💖