Last week, I arrived in the Shetlands hoping to find
seabirds and seals. After a couple of phone calls, I was a bit discouraged to
find out that all of the tours to sea cliffs, where many of the birds are
currently nesting, were fully booked. Not ready to give up, I asked the last
lady I’d spoken with over the phone if there was somewhere I could at least hike
to for seabird viewing. She said it would be easier to show me than to tell me
where to go, and since she was near the pier, would come out to meet me. After
thanking her for her trouble and explaining who I was, she admitted that she
had really come out to see how small I was and was more than happy to add me on
to their morning tour. She then pointed me in the direction of a cliff lookout
I had time to hike to before the tour and I headed off feeling both grateful
and excited!
I headed back to the pier already feeling accomplished and
was immediately charmed by the small boat filled with reference books, field
guides, plankton tow net, and compound microscope with a camera! Yep, pretty
much everything a marine science nerd would want to have onboard. Throughout
the day, it was so refreshing to listen to Robbi’s (the woman I’d met earlier
and our biologist for the excursion) wonderful interpretation and to learn from
her enthusiasm! She was more than twice my age, but you’d never have guessed it
with all of her energy! You don’t ever have to lose your passion for something
if you just keep exploring and learning! It was a magical morning of sailing
past high cliffs filled with several different species of nesting seabirds
(shags, razorbills, guillemots, fulmars, kittiwakes, and puffins), discovering
invertebrate life inside a large sea cave, and observing grey seals hauled out
on large rocks enjoy the sunshine as much as we were!
I returned to the ship feeling productive and inspired. Our
surroundings had felt so pristine, so raw and wild. My footage from the trip
initially seemed like a great representation of an environment where marine
life thrives undisturbed. As I began to study the photos more closely for their
potential to incorporate in my upcoming slideshow presentations, I came across
one that was a stinging reminder. At first glance, it appeared to be a healthy
group of grey seals, alert and aware of our presence. I zoomed in to see a
disturbing ring of bare skin around the neck of one individual that had been
rubbed raw from the nylon fishing net that was visibly constricting the area.
It looked sore.
The sad part is that there is nothing that can be done for the
seal, other than to hope that it is not hindering its ability to forage and
that the wound is not (or does not become) infected. There are no rescue facilities
in that area and the likelihood of anyone being able to approach or capture the
animal and remove the rope is very low.
If there is anything positive about the image, it is that it
sends a powerful message about the effects of marine debris. Although plastic
pollution in the ocean environment is a much more widespread issue, the
entanglement that results from discarded fishing nets is more dramatic and
obvious. I don’t know if the seal’s situation resulted from its own curiosity
of a fishing operation or if it did indeed get caught in a net that had been
lost at sea on accident. However the rope ended up around the seal’s neck, it
is an important realization that even in pristine areas, our actions have the
potential to affect marine life. Our responsibility as stewards of the world’s
oceans is to not only to avoid directly harming marine life or damaging the
marine environment, but to be mindful of our indirect impacts. Even if we don’t
fish, we have the power to hold commercial industries accountable for their
practices. Often ecosystems appear healthy at first glance or the purchases
that we make seem sustainable, but to be confident in this, we really have to
make the effort to take a closer look and to be conscious of more than what we
see on the surface or (in this case) from a distance.
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