Today for Australian life & culture, we went to the SeaBird Rescue. It was an organization that rescues birds and sea turtles. The staff member first showed us a film on how much plastic is being carelessly thrown into the ocean and how many animals it is harming/killing. Then we went into the turtle's vet room. There was a big tank that held 4 sea turtles, ageing from 10-40. They has been rescued and were in heir final stages of care before being let go into the wild again. There were 2 smaller tubs that each held 1 sea turtle. The one turtle has eaten fishing line and it was possibly entangled in the turtles digestive track because some fishing line was hanging out his back end. THe other turtle had probably eaten a plastic bag (like those from the grocery store) and was causing problems with the turtles ability to naturally let out gases and oxygen, so it is getting stuck in the turtle which turns him into a balloon that can't swim under the water. This prevents them from feeding, so if the bag doesn't kill them, they will starve because they can't swim underwater. Really sad stuff. Over 100 thousand marine animals are killed each year from "rubbish" being wasted into the water. (When we had surfing & scuba lessons, they touched on this subject and told us to grab any plastic/trash that we see in our jackets/wetsuits because it harms so many animals).
The organization also rescues and saves many birds/pellicans. They offer courses on how to catch them in case of any indangerment. We could not see any of the birds due the how easily birds get scared- I think the turtles loved the attention though.
Really cool day, I think that it made us all want to take a boat out and start cleaning the ocean.
When we got back we had our intramural volleyball tourney- I hit the ball a few times!! Then we had another spaghetti night made by the cooking committee! Always good meals made by us!
Now homework..
Another good thing about today- I got a package & card from home!!! YAYYY!!! :)
The other pictures that I am including are a Walking Stick that our group members found and from the Seabird Rescue & turtles.
