Today my fellow classmates and I traveled
to the Bahia Honda State Park. We first got the opportunity to swim in the
crystal clear water on the beach. We later performed a beach cleanup along the
shore line. Together all 9 of us collected enough garbage in 2 hours to fill
the entire bed of a pickup truck. It’s so sad that society has the mentality
that it is ok to purchase single use plastic and just discard it anywhere they
please. Believe it or not these large plastic pieces break apart creating micro
plastics that eventually will end up in our food sources and come back to
really hurt society in the end. It is up
to the younger generations of kids to help save the planet and fix the problems
that their elders created. Along the way we found some really strange things
like batteries, shoes, lipstick containers, water bottles and plastic utensils
but beneath all the rubbage I was able to find one hidden treasure.
Walking along the shore line I
spotted this huge white mass out of the corner of my eye. Getting closer to further investigate what I saw,
I came to realize that I found a real life conch shell. As a kid I had always
found them to be so ornate and as a foolish child I thought that I would be
able to find one on the rocky beaches of the long island sound. Year after year I would scour the shores but
come back empty handed every time. Finding
so many of them fully intact on the shore today made a child hood dream of mine
finally come true.
Conchs are a type of mollusk that can
usually be found in shallow waters with bottoms of either sand or
sea grass. These massive organisms and their
shells can reach sizes of about 12 inches as well as having the ability to live
up to 40 years. Their diets consist of mostly sea grass and algae due to the
fact that they are entirely herbivorous. These precious organisms have are hunted in
the fishing industry for human consumption of their meat as well as their shells
for jewelry. Due to these horrific
events this organisms has begun to become over fished and harvested. Government
officials have begun to realize these problems and as a result they have
created regulations to prevent this problem form getting worse allowing the
population to reboot itself.
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I wish I could've seen all of the conchs! They're one of my favorite kinds of shells. It's so sad that, when it comes to money, humans will do anything to earn a pretty penny. I hope more regulations are created to help protect these little guys.
ReplyDeleteI’m really glad you were able to have one of your childhood dreams come true! It’s terrible that these animals were overfished and had their numbers significantly decline, but I am glad that officials have stepped in to reduce the conch’s threats. Hopefully, their numbers increase and the animals can bounce back!
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