Saturation Point
From Rain to Turtle Shells
By
Mar 3, 2005, 09:36

Do you remember what one of the children in Earth Force said about rain and pollution? I do, because it was such a well thought out observation about rain water washing away the pollutants from our cars and our lawn into the sewer system.

The rain water that is now mixed with pollution does not just go into our sewer systems, but it washes into our oceans and bays. In particular it is absorbed by sea grass beds that dot the coast of Tampa Bay.

I am sure you are thinking that absorption by the sea grass isn’t such a bad thing, but when you look into the process further, it does cause significant damage.
Once the sea grass beds absorb the pollution, the little creatures that depend on the tall, green habitat for protection start to feel the influences of pollution. Small almost microscopic organisms that nibble on the grass are consuming the pollutants that the sea grass absorbed. The larger creatures that eat the smaller creatures also ingest the pollutants because they have now been passed on. This may not be visible to our naked eye, but scientists have been studying the effects of pollution on the health of animals for years.

I wasn’t even aware of what type of damage could be caused by such pollution until I began helping out the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. It doesn’t take a scientist to see the tissue build-up on sea turtles that are housed in the turtle ICU at the aquarium.



When I first began volunteering there I asked about the sick turtles and I found out that older sea turtles and young sea turtles do not have the tissue build-up, it only shows up when the sea turtles are juveniles.
The best educated guess that one of the caretakers could give me as to why this occurs is that the food source, which is sea grass, has pollutants that are causing these problems for the sea turtles. The tissue build-up can be seen growing over their eyes, in their mouths, on their skin and flippers hindering them from moving. If this isn’t taken care of by trained professionals the sea turtles could die, and by the sheer number of them at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, this would cause an even greater decline in the species.

So what does rainwater, pollution and sea grass beds have to do with Peter Clark at Tampa Bay Watch? I’ll tell you next week.


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