Today we are going to talk about saving sea turtles, specifically things that you can do at home to help save an endangered species!

Most people really like sea turtles and for good reason, these charismatic marine reptiles are truly amazing creatures. Unfortunately, most sea turtle species are endangered, and they need our help. Even if you don’t live by the ocean there are three, small, easy steps that you can take each day to help save our undersea friends.

Step One

• Become a conscious and responsible consumer of seafood. You can do this by learning or asking where and how your seafood was caught. It is best to choose seafood caught in ways that do not harm or kill turtles. A good place to learn some of this information is through sustainable seafood information networks like the one run by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which can be found a http://www.seafoodwatch.org

Step Two

• Recycling and limiting single-use plastics so you can help to reduce marine debris that may be accidentally eaten by sea turtles. An easy way to do this is to start using reusable water bottles and shopping bags. The easiest step you can take is by not using a plastic straw. When eating at a restaurant simply let your waitress or waiter know by saying, “no straw please”. These three easy words can help cut down on the plastics that find their way into the ocean. If you really, really like using a straw there are plenty of reusable products available for purchase online.

Step Three

• Please avoid releasing balloons, they will most likely end up near or in the ocean where sea turtles can mistake them for prey and eat them. While releasing balloons can seem like a fun event to do at a party, not many people realize that these balloons can travel very far distances on air currents and will eventually pop. When these balloons pop and their fragments make it into the ocean the can pose a major threat to young sea turtles as they confuse them for food and can become very sick from eating them. Please check out this shocking video of plastics floating in the ocean near Indonesia!

 

I hope you all can do your part to help save sea turtles. Just remember no matter how far away you are from the ocean or a sea turtle there are quick changes we can make to our daily lives that can help benefit the ocean and the turtles that live in it!

Thanks for reading!