At an early age, I kept aquariums in my room. Maybe starting in 5th grade, 6th grade? Around ten or eleven years old anyway.
I'd bike to "fish stores" in the San Fernando valley and try to bike back before the fish in the little plastic bags ran out of oxygen and/or overheated, and died.
I loved feeding them, researching which fish could live together, researching and providing the conditions they needed to live, etc.
It was entertaining, and they were my own pets! Studies show today that aquariums and fish can help relax people, and extend life expectancy. Incredible. I look forward to starting aquariums here at home with my two young kids.
I moved onto salt-water aquariums in about 11th grade - which are more difficult to keep! Salinity, temperature, pH and water quality all need to remain in safe zones. Or the fish would die. I didn't like that. Nobody likes that.
I think the Republican climate change-denying politicians today do not understand that the world's oceans are the same - and that the temperature and pH are quickly becoming problematic. And that we are to blame. Perhaps they never kept a fish tank? We are heating and polluting the planet and our oceans too fast. We are losing our coral reefs. Entire species are at risk. Perhaps the web of life in the ocean as a whole. It is an overwhelming idea.
In high school, also just around the age of 16 (I'll have to check my PADI card), I got certified as a scuba diver. Today I have almost 100 logged dives, mostly in California, but many in exotic and wonderful places like Hawaii, the Bahamas, even Greece!
The diversity and beauty and wonder of coral reefs is irrefutable. yellow tangs, blue tangs, green moray eels, zebra fish and humuhumunikinikiapuaa (I typed that from memory, maybe it's close!).
Octopus, sharks, lobsters, starfish, shrimp, scallops - these are all amazing, wonderous creatures.
The coral reef is the home for many of these animals. The bottom animals of the chain eat from the coral reef, and all the animals up the chain eat from there, up to us. We endanger societies all across the earth that rely on seafood for protein and nourishment. That cannot just go to Costco and get some farm raised salmon.
It is almost impossible to imagine a world with a nearly dead sea. We have time to save it - maybe. We have to stop increasing the rate of global warming right now. We have to stop preventable pollution from entering our seas right now. I hope you have this in your awareness, and take it quite seriously, and are helping. It's taken millions of years to deliver the Finding Nemo beauty and necessity of sea life. We cannot allow it to go away.
I'd bike to "fish stores" in the San Fernando valley and try to bike back before the fish in the little plastic bags ran out of oxygen and/or overheated, and died.
I loved feeding them, researching which fish could live together, researching and providing the conditions they needed to live, etc.
It was entertaining, and they were my own pets! Studies show today that aquariums and fish can help relax people, and extend life expectancy. Incredible. I look forward to starting aquariums here at home with my two young kids.
I moved onto salt-water aquariums in about 11th grade - which are more difficult to keep! Salinity, temperature, pH and water quality all need to remain in safe zones. Or the fish would die. I didn't like that. Nobody likes that.
I think the Republican climate change-denying politicians today do not understand that the world's oceans are the same - and that the temperature and pH are quickly becoming problematic. And that we are to blame. Perhaps they never kept a fish tank? We are heating and polluting the planet and our oceans too fast. We are losing our coral reefs. Entire species are at risk. Perhaps the web of life in the ocean as a whole. It is an overwhelming idea.
In high school, also just around the age of 16 (I'll have to check my PADI card), I got certified as a scuba diver. Today I have almost 100 logged dives, mostly in California, but many in exotic and wonderful places like Hawaii, the Bahamas, even Greece!
The diversity and beauty and wonder of coral reefs is irrefutable. yellow tangs, blue tangs, green moray eels, zebra fish and humuhumunikinikiapuaa (I typed that from memory, maybe it's close!).
Octopus, sharks, lobsters, starfish, shrimp, scallops - these are all amazing, wonderous creatures.
The coral reef is the home for many of these animals. The bottom animals of the chain eat from the coral reef, and all the animals up the chain eat from there, up to us. We endanger societies all across the earth that rely on seafood for protein and nourishment. That cannot just go to Costco and get some farm raised salmon.
It is almost impossible to imagine a world with a nearly dead sea. We have time to save it - maybe. We have to stop increasing the rate of global warming right now. We have to stop preventable pollution from entering our seas right now. I hope you have this in your awareness, and take it quite seriously, and are helping. It's taken millions of years to deliver the Finding Nemo beauty and necessity of sea life. We cannot allow it to go away.