People always ask me, why are you getting your degree in environmental studies? Well, I want to keep my options open for when I graduate. The field I would love to be in would be the coastal waters conservation or even the conservation of the oceans. There is so much wrong with the Indian River Lagoon (IRL) system right now and it infuriates me. How is it gonna be in 10-20 years from now when my sons want to go out and fish or
kayak out there? The way things are going, it will suck tremendously. With me getting into environmental science it will give me a chance to do something about it on a bigger scale that just being self conscious about what I do out there. The even bigger fear I have is what about in the ocean? The amount of trash that we have put out there is completely insane. There is a trash vortex in the Pacific that is twice the size of Texas and that's not the only one out there, each ocean has a trash vortex. It's now getting into our fish and according to a article that Dr. Woodall emailed me, it has infiltrated into the coastal fish and shellfish. As residents of a peninsula, Florida, a lot of our revenue comes from the water that we are surrounded by.
If you couldn't tell by how passionate I seem talking about this, my Independent Research Project (IRP) will be on micro plastics in fish and shellfish, and if the weather would cooperate I would be able to get out there and start getting some research started. I want to see how much of the plastic dump in the Atlantic has effected our little piece of paradise.
Can't wait to see if you find something. No on has ever proposed this project in the lab!
ReplyDeleteWhat physiological or environmental impacts do you suspect micro-plastics have on shellfish that would create a hazard to their populations?
ReplyDeleteDavid, that is a great question. What I'm thinking is that if there are micro-plastics in shellfish and more specific oysters , is that they are not filtering the amount of water that they would if they didn't have the micro-plastics in them. A healthy oyster can filter up to 50 gals per day per oyster.
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