User:Jacob Trebony/Pollution

Animal Pollution
Humans are not the only animals effected by pollution. Animals are more effected by these pollutants every day than humans. We will start by talking about water pollution. Water is essential to human life, according to "1.1 billion people lack access to water and 2.4 billion don’t have adequate sanitation." Over 1/4 of the world doesn't have clean water because of pollution. Water becomes polluted when toxic substances are dumped or flow into streams and waterways. These pollutants that flow into are waterways come from many different forms, organic, inorganic, etc. These pollutants cause so much damage to our oceans that they even cause there to be what are called dead zones in the ocean. Dead zones are zones in oceans or some lakes where the oxygen in the water is so low that life cannot exist. In 2008, there was a study to see how many dead zones were currently in the world. They found out that around 400 dead zones were in the oceans and some large lakes. This information was found over ten years ago which means that there has to be so many more dead zones now than there were in 2008. Pollution also cause another epidemic called Algal Blooms. This is caused by an overabundance of nutrients in the water. These algal blooms are also know as "Red tides" or "brown tides". These tides cause damage to marine life and even human life. Another pollution caused side effect is called Acid Rain. Acid Rain is exactly what it sounds like. It is when water in the atmosphere mixes with the chemicals that factories, cars, etc. give off. This acid rain can cause harm to fish in lakes and streams because when the rain makes contact with the soil it can release the aluminum particles in the soil, which causes harm to the fish. The last side effect that will be covered is called garbage patches. These garbage patches are gyres in the ocean that suck up trash. They are like a garbage disposal but doesn't dispose of the garbage. The litter in these garbage patches causes great harm to the coral reefs in the ocean.

Animals Affected
Sea Turtles - Saving sea turtles has become a trend in recent months because of social media. Sea turtles travel around the ocean for their entire life. They are exposed to many different threats along the way. Sea turtles are effects by climate change, trash in the ocean, habitat loss, and many more. Sea turtles need beaches to nest their young, but because of human activities and pollution on the beach this has caused a disturbance on the nesting process. These turtles also feed off of coral reefs and sea which are damaged by the trash in garbage patches and trash just floating around in the ocean. Climate change effects the life of the sea turtle. All stages of a sea turtle’s life are affected by environmental conditions such as temperature, even the sex of offspring.

Polar Bears - Another animal that is dealing with pollution in their every day life is the polar bear. Polar bears are becoming closer and closer to extinction every day. There are only 22,000-31,000 left in the world. Some of the threats that polar bears are exposed to are as follow, Industrial Impacts, Climate Change, Unsustainable Hunting, and Human conflict. Industrial Impact releases oil into the oceans which on impact with the polar bear would be fatal. Also, oil effects their food source. Climate change effects the polar ice caps. Since the earth is getting warmer this means that the ice caps are melting, for polar bears this means that their habitats will be destroyed.

Whales - whales are actually endangered due to pollution. There are only 300 North Atlantic whales left and as few as 10,000 - 90,000 for other whale species. Whales populations are this low due to climate change and pollution. Warming oceans and loss of sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic can affect the habitats and food of whales. Large patches of tiny plants and animals that they feed on will likely move or change in abundance as climate change alters seawater temperature, winds and ocean currents. Which causes whales food sources to be destroyed or move.

Coral Reefs - Coral reefs are essential to many of the marine life in the ocean. They are shelter for many animals and food for many as well. Pollution in the ocean has caused many of the coral reefs in the world to start bleaching. According to https://oceanservice.noaa.gov coral bleacing is "When corals are stressed by changes in conditions such as temperature, light, or nutrients, they expel the symbiotic algae living in their tissues, causing them to turn completely white." This means that when the coral turns white it is more susceptible to disease. This will cause the coral to die, which then will cause many of the marine life in the ocean to not have a home or leave many starving.