Ocean Health – Proteus

Knitting sea turtles at sea on the E/V Nautilus. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

Sea Turtle Nest. Image Credit: Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge

A turtle trail along a scarf. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman

A blanket for Dr. Amber Hale. Image Credit: Amber Hale

There’s always one moment when a factoid emerges that endears me to a critter in some silly, but permanent way, propelling me forward on a quest to know more. Discovering otters juggle rocks fueled an ongoing obsession. Learning octopuses are notorious escape artists came with a permanent membership in the cephalopod fan club. An albatross’s roundtrip thousand-plus mile flights to feed their babies, made me a student of seabirds.

When a mamma sea turtle works her way up a beach to lay her eggs, her fins leave this wonderful squiggly pattern in the sand. It’s a straight line from the salty sea to a future where hundreds of little squirming baby sea turtles hatch and return to the ocean about 60 days after mom’s labor is done.

The fact that this squiggly pattern can be recreated with a simple series of repetitive twists and turns in some super-soft yarn is, perhaps, the ultimate bonus for science-loving knitting nerd such as myself. But, before casting on, let’s talk turtle.

Although sea turtles spend most of their lives at sea, female sea turtles come on land to lay their eggs. Image Credit: NOAA

There are seven species of sea turtles in our world ocean; six of them can be found in U.S. waters (green, hawksbill, Kemp’s ridley, leatherback, loggerhead, and olive ridley).

All six species are listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. According to US Fish and Wildlife, a species is listed as endangered if it is at risk of extinction, and it is listed as threatened if it is likely to become endangered.

Like many marine mammals and seabirds, sea turtles are at risk from ship strikes, entanglement, plastic pollution, and climate change.

These air-breathing reptiles have roamed the Earth for over 150 million years. Some species, such as leatherback sea turtles, weigh anywhere from 500 to 2000 pounds and can dive up to 4000 feet deep. Leatherbacks have been known to migrate thousands of miles for jellyfish, their preferred prey, but nibbling on squid, sea urchins, and floating seaweed will serve as a tasty meal too.

We haven’t always known much about their lives because we can only observe what we see on land. As technologies like satellite trackers and accelerometers get smaller and more cost effective, scientists are on a path to learn much more about the mammals and seabirds who spend much of their time out in and over the open ocean waters. In 2016, researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) used specially engineered cameras to capture rare images and oceanographic data of leatherback sea turtles in the wild. This information will help scientists learn what the critters are eating, where they travel, and what hazards they encounter along the way.

You can learn more about sea turtles by visiting NOAA Marine Life Education Resource Collection, Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge or the Marine Turtle Research Group at University of Central Florida.

If you’re interested in casting on and knitting some sea turtles, I really enjoyed Heather Anderson’s designs. I made her shawl and then modified the pattern to make a baby blanket for a dear friend and a scarf for my mom. She generously offered a coupon to our readers for her Turtle’s Journey Scarf, which you can find here; use PROTEUSTURTLE promo code on Ravelry (a well-known knitting site) and download the pattern for free. The coupon is valid through January 31, 2019.

Jenny Woodman is a writer and educator; she knits a lot. Follow her on Twitter @JennyWoodman

Heather Anderson is an avid knitter who lives not too far from the ocean in New Hampshire. She teaches knitting classes and designs knitting patterns that keep her learning new things all of the time; you can view her pattern collections here.

This post was updated Dec 7.

Understanding Seals – A Scientist and Artist in One of the Last Wild Places on Earth by Jenny Woodman

Understanding Wild Things by Jenny Woodman

On the Trail of Sea Life with an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle by Amy Amy Kukulya and Ken Kostel

Changing Seas Season 7, Episode 1: Sea Turtles the Lost Year by PBS

36NOAA_MARINE_DEBRIS_2016_DAVID_SLATER_16_0 — Free public water fountains and refilling stations help reduce plastic pollution from single use plastic water bottles. Image Credit: NOAA Marine Debris Program

It’s a beautiful day. The sun is out and it’s a perfect, warm temperature outside. With a free afternoon ahead of me, I decide to open up my WeTap app and go hunting for water fountains. The map is empty for a 200 mile radius around me, which I found out last week when I opened the app for the first time since arriving in Arkansas, meaning that either there are absolutely no water fountains to be found or many water fountains and refilling stations remain unmarked in this area. The search becomes a game, like geocaching. It doesn’t take long on my walk around the historic downtown of Rogers to find a public drinking fountain–in fact, I only had to walk two blocks. I take a picture, log the quality, and voila! Now, there is one new fountain on the map.

learn-1 — Marine debris floating near Hawai`i. Image Credit: NOAA Marine Debris Program

WeTap is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving access to clean drinking water via public fountains while reducing dependence on single-use plastic bottles. The founders of the organization created an app for mobile devices that maps public drinking fountains around the United States. With an extensive map already in place, users are able to access the addresses of nearby fountains and map routes to them, making it easy to find free, clean, single-use plastic free water. The fountain profiles within the app include information about the water flow quality, whether there is a dog bowl available, and if there is a water bottle refill station present.

Although the greatest concentration of public water fountains are in cities, fountains exist all over the country. Users can also participate by adding fountains not yet included on the map.

The efforts of this app, and many like it, are to provide resources that make it easy for consumers to reduce their consumption of single-use plastics, a growing environmental problem.

Single use plastics include anything that is made of plastic and used only once before disposal or recycling. The lengthy list of single use items includes household staples such as plastic grocery bags, water bottles, carry-out food containers, straws, cups, utensils, plastic packaging, and plastic wrap.

One of the primary issues surrounding single-use plastics is that they commonly pollute the ocean. It is estimated that 32 percent of plastic packaging worldwide is not properly disposed of; the debris often ends up in our oceans, where much of it remains for thousands of years, slowly degrading into smaller and smaller pieces.

Plastic pollution has an immediate and lasting effect on wildlife; one million marine mammals are killed by marine debris each year. According to NOAA, “Debris ingestion may lead to loss of nutrition, internal injury, intestinal blockage, starvation, and even death.”

STCZHawnArchipelg_MDP_0 — Oceanic features can also help trap items in debris accumulation zones, often referred to in the media and marine debris community as “garbage patches.” Image Credit: NOAA Marine Debris Program

The fight against single-use plastics is happening worldwide in the form of public education, fines, and bans.

In 2017, Kenya banned plastic bags, with a $38,000 fine or four years in jail. The U.K. established bans across the country to limit plastic Microbead use in cosmetic and personal care products in January of 2018 and have estimated that the use of plastic bags dropped nearly 9 billion after taxes were introduced in 2015. Seattle is leading the way for cities across the U.S. with bans starting July 1 of this year for both single-use plastic utensils and straws.

With actions such as these, the momentum to limit single-use plastics is increasing around the globe.

Because of the many different plastics and variety of disposal streams, there isn’t one solution to the array of different issues surrounding plastic pollution around the globe. Luckily, there are many ways of approaching the problem, and tools such as WeTap hope to help lead the way.

Malea Saul is the 2018 Science Writing Fellow for Proteus. She received her degree in oceanography from the University of Washington last year and has since been exploring the intersection of science, communication, and education. She is especially interested in how film and storytelling can help transform how we see and investigate the many intricacies of our planet. Follow her on Twitter @SaulMalea.

Letter to America by Rebecca Altman

American Beauties, Stories on the Plastic Bag by Rebecca Altman

Planet or Plastic? A National Geographic Series

Do open ocean cleanups address our growing ocean trash problem effectively and California’s new straw law! By Jenny Stock for Ocean Currents Radio

Showing where plastic ends up by Plastic Adrift

How does plastic end up in the ocean? By World Wildlife Fund

This post was updated Dec 7.

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