The Coolest Whale Video Ever

Watch these humpback whales use a very smart way to 

confuse and trap fish. Teamwork!

"Leave us alone," says the otter

Connor is the first MicroActivist and urges other children to join in with keeping beaches debris-free.

From birth, Connor loved the water. It soothed him, drew him in and was always his happy place ... During a trip to visit family in Hawaii, Connor saw a wild monk seal on an early morning walk down the beach (and) he had to learn all there was to learn about the endangered monk seal. Learning how these curious creatures are often entangled in discarded fishing nets and leftover beach trash set the five-year-old on a mission to clean up as many beaches as he could...What started as one little boy's mission to save endangered monk seals has grown into a movement of kids determined to change the fate of the oceans!

The Aquarium of the Pacific has awarded Connor with the 2017 Youth Hero of the Year Award for his ongoing efforts on ocean conservation. And he earned the 2017 Earth Warrior Hero Award.

Kids can join Connor in ocean conservation like these boys and girls pictured below during a recent beach cleanup.

--from Microactivist Foundation

Pickle-like Creatures Invade Pacific West Coast

Pyrosome. (NOAA photo)

There's a garden of pickles growing in the Pacific Ocean!

OK, that's not exactly true, but there aren "Millions of tubular sea creatures called pyrosomes (that) have taken over the Pacific Ocean in an unprecedented bloom," reports an Oregon newspaper.

Scientists are baffled and in a pickle trying to explain these pickle-looking sea creatures.

"These bumpy, translucent organisms look like sea cucumbers that range in size from six inches to more than two feet long...

"And they’re everywhere, filling the waters off the West Coast all the way up to Alaska, and washing up on beaches.

"One research boat caught 60,000 of them in five minutes. They’re so thick in Alaska that fishermen gave up on fishing because their hooks were coming up full of pyrosomes instead of salmon."

Kids Care About Our Oceans!

Marine Debris Art Contest Winner

Congratulations to our Annual NOAA Marine Debris Program Art Contest winners, whom will be featured in the 2018 Marine Debris Calendar! This year, we received more than 500 entries from kindergarten to 8th-grade students with incredible visual messages on what we need to do to be the solution to ocean pollution. Thank you to all the students who participated in this year's contest!

"Dr. Whizzepuff Explains Climate Change

Kids Producing A Film About the Oceans

HEIRS TO OUR OCEANS.  That’s who we are, along with your children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and newly-spawned zygotes. 

Heirs to our oceans are the next generation and the future generations who will inherit this planet and all that comes with it…. after your generation is done with it.

We live just near the Pacific Ocean.  We have learned about and seen the atrocities to our ocean.  We have studied what is happening to know why action is needed to end the human impact on our planet’s oceans. 

We are sad.  We are mad.  We are motivated.  We are inspired.  We are hopeful.  We are tenacious.  

And together we are taking action.

We are committing this next year, summer 2016 through summer 2017, to diving further into learning about the issues we and our oceans face.  We will take you along in our voyage so that you too might learn and be inspired to join us in our efforts to ensure that the oceans and the magnificent and necessary life within them are on this planet, alive and well, for our generation and our children’s. 

And, we are making a movie.  No not a dull drab documentary.  A movie.  One that will move you, make you laugh, make you cry, make you excited, make you concerned, make you want to change, make you want to encourage others to change, make you want to join us. 

We are the Heirs To Our Oceans, and we have a job to do.

Hop in and ride this wild wave with us.  

What is Marine Debris?

Be a Beach Trash Warrior

Be a Beach Trash Warrior

Yahoo! It's summer. And we're going to the beach! 

Let's have fun and keep our beaches clean.  Be sure to get your family and friends to rid the day's trash in the right way. Recycle! Reuse! Reduce! Be a BEACH TRASH WARRIOR.

Learn more about trash and the ocean with this video.

Watch Dory. Don't Buy Her. She's Fragile in the Wild

Did you know that the real Dory is a Pacific blue tang, and is now being illegally collected and kept as pets?  Well, it is a beautiful fish, and the character is charming in the Finding Nemo films, BUT

the Pacific blue tang is "under threat" and plays a very important role in the environment.  

"They graze algae on coral reefs, which is a very important job because it prevents the corals from being overgrown," said behavioral ecologist, Culum Brown.

Giant Leatherback Turtle Surprises Whale Watchers

...On the Whale Watching vessel San Mateo out of Dana Wharf in California, the whale watching crew came upon a giant Leatherback Turtle. The turtle ... first looked like a sea monster to the crew. It surfaced and was dragging a huge string of kelp. 

The crew member Jason Kunewa who recognized it as a turtle as it came closer to the boat realized the kelp was wrapped around its left flipper and neck. He quickly got his GoPro and a knife and jumped in the water, Jason reported that the leatherback turtle was a long as him but must have weighed close to 700 lbs... Capt Bo Daniel assisted Jason from the deck. Due to the heroic efforts of Kunewa, he was quickly able to cut it free as you will see in this video The leatherback turtle quickly swam free out of sight. Jason rescued a “HONU” and we are so proud that he works for us and cares so deeply about Mother Earth.

Edited from a http://danawharf.com/whale-watching/ post.

From NOAA's Kid's Times:  

Size of leatherback turtle. Photo credit:
Steve Garvie from Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland 

Leatherbacks are the largest of the sea turtles. Adult leatherback turtles are 4-8 feet long and weigh 650-1,300 lbs. They are mostly black on top with white and pink spots on the head, neck, and carapace. The plastron is mottled with pink, white and black. They have two tooth-like cusps on either side of the upper jaw. Leatherback hatchlings are 2-3 inches in length with fore flippers as long as their bodies and unique white striping along the ridges of their backs.


Because leatherbacks are such strong swimmers, they are able to make long distance migrations across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans from their feeding grounds to their nesting beaches. Leatherback turtles are regularly found much further north than other sea turtle species. As cold-blooded reptiles, a leatherback turtle’s body temperature should be the same as the temperature of the water, but they have been reported in water temperatures below 43°F. No other reptile has ever been known to remain active at such a low temperature. Due to their large size and a special characteristic of their circulatory system, leatherbacks are able to conserve body heat and survive in cooler water temperatures.

Jellyfish are a leatherback turtle's favorite food.
C. Coimbra photo

Leatherback turtles love jellyfish! It seems very unlikely that such a large turtle would eat something so small that consists mainly of water, but they eat tons of them. Leatherbacks also eat sea squirts and other soft-bodied animals. They have scissor-like jaws and a mouth lined with stiff spines that point backwards to help them swallow their soft prey.

Wild Sea Otter Gives Birth Near Aquarium

From Monterey Bay Aquarium
March 8, 2016

Otterly amazing! A wild sea otter mom, seeking shelter from stormy seas, gave birth to her pup in our Great Tide Pool this weekend as guests and staff watched. This mom and pup pair are not part of the Aquarium's Sea Otter Program so they may return to their wild kelp forest home at any time, but we’re so grateful to have had this incredible first-hand look at their lives.

Our sea otter researchers have been studying wild otters for over 30 years but have never seen a birth happen so close. Not that long ago, southern sea otters were hunted to near extinction but now, thanks to laws and a change of heart toward these furriest of sea creatures, the otter population in Monterey Bay has rebounded.

If you missed the live birth we shared on Periscope, check out the rebroadcast. You can also stay up to date through our Facebook page, on Twitter and Instagram, and read more about the events as they unfold via Tumblr.

We’re amazed and awed to have had a chance to witness this Monterey Bay conservation success story in our own backyard.

Welcome to the world, little otter!

Sherman's Lagoon Characters Explain Marine Debris

Jim Toomey's Sherman's Lagoon characters explain marine debris

CUTENESS ALERT!!!! Newborn Baby Otter

Monterey Bay Aquarium photo. Newborn sea otter pup born, Dec. 21, 2015

Born last December in California's Monterey Bay, this day old wild otter pup casually rests on its mother's belly for a grooming and a nap.

California sea otters once populated the coast in the hundreds of thousands.  The sea otter has plush, soft fur that keeps it warm in cold ocean waters. Unfortunately, it was the beautiful, warm fur that brought these otters to near extinction.  

Today, otters are protected.  They struggle, but moments like the one gives all of us hope.

Ocean Awareness Contest for Young Artists

We invite middle and high school students from around the world in the 2016 Ocean Awareness Student Contest! The theme is Making Meaning out of Ocean Pollution, and it challenges you to research, explore, interpret, and say something meaningful about the connections between human activities and the health of our oceans.

This year, we challenge you to focus on ONE type of ocean pollution and “make meaning” of it through art, poetry, prose, or film. We would encourage you to connect it with your own life, your own local community, or something else that is personally meaningful to you, but what’s most important is to pick a topic that inspires and motivates you.

This is an interdisciplinary contest that weaves together ocean awareness, creativity, and advocacy. Advocacy means taking a stand for something you believe in. It requires problem-solving skills, assertiveness, and most of all, knowing when to call the world to action.

While learning from science, history, and personal experience will inform your entry, there is no “right” way to do meaningful advocacy. Use your creativity to make art, poetry, prose, or films that inspire and empower a new generation of ocean stewardship!

For details visit:  http://www.fromthebowseat.org/contest-2016.php

The Marine Debris Monster. Scary Stuff!

As you’re trick-or-treating this Halloween, watch out for scares... Goblins! Monsters! Debris! BOO! (Drawing by Teeger B., Grade 8, California, art contest winner featured in the 2013 Marine Debris Calendar)


Here are the top 10 kinds of trash picked up after Halloween--and since the ocean is downhill from everything, imagine how much of this trash winds up in the sea--feeding that Marine Debris Monster. Ooooooooooooooooo, that's scary stuff.

A Dragon Story With A Sea-ful Twist

 The Dragon Dreamer is a young adult science fiction adventure with dragons and a detailed undersea world that has inspired kids to learn more about the sea, says author, J.S. Burke who worked as a marine biologist for the Florida Department of Natural Resources Bureau of Marine Research.

Ms. Burke, who specialized in science research papers, admits that not everyone will read a science research paper, especially younger readers. So, she wrote The Dragon Dreamer as a young adult (ages 9 and up) science fiction adventure with a young dragon named Arak, and a detailed undersea world to help young people learn more about the sea.

Arak is a misfit dragon who gets lost in mind-trance, so he's called "Dreamer" and ridiculed.  

Determined to prove himself he leaves on a dangerous quest, is caught in a fierce sea-storm, and crashes. Badly wounded, he faces death. A fearless, undersea shape-shifter named Scree heals him, and an unexpected friendship begins.

Other science books for youngsters by Jenny S. Burke include, Crystal Colors, Fantasy Snowflake Activities, Crystal Geometry and Crystal Clouds.  To learn more about these books, visit http://www.jennysburke.com

The Dragon Dreamer can be found at:
Amazon US: bit.ly/TheDragonDreamer 
Amazon UK 
NOOK
KOBO

"Plastic, Ahoy!" -- The Science of Plastic Waste for Kids

If you draw a line on a flat map of the planet, you will cross about 165 major rivers. Each one of those rivers will end in one of 5 oceans:  the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic and Antarctic Oceans. 

When we accidentally lose a plastic bottle filled with juice, soda, tea or water, and it winds up in a river, guess where it ends up?

1. A parking lot?
2. A neighbor’s front yard?
3. The ocean where that river ends?

It could end up on any of the above three locations. But if that bottle isn’t picked up and properly put away—like in a recycling bin—eventually it could end up in one of the 5 oceans.

Children’s book author, Patricia Newman, wrote about students learning the science of plastics and the ocean. Her award-winning book, “Plastic, Ahoy!  —  Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch” is a real-life science book about what happens when our plastic trash ends up in the 
ocean. 

And there is so much plastic in the ocean now that scientists worry. They worry if plastic has become part of the food tiny fish eat. Then they worry if the bigger fish that eat those tiny fish filled with plastic, become filled with plastic too.  The next worry is, what about the fish we eat? Are they filled with plastic?  

We also know that dolphins, sea turtles, whales, seals, and sea birds become trapped in plastic waste and that they often mistake plastic waste for food. Plastic isn't food. It's poison when eaten.

How can you help?  This Saturday, September 19, 2015, kids and grown-ups from around the world will help keep plastics out of our oceans.  It is International Coastal Cleanup Day.

In 2014, 560,000 volunteers in 91 countries picked up more than 16 million pounds of trash.

Talkin' Trash

What is marine debris?  It's trash that winds up in the ocean.  You can make a difference and help prevent trash from landing in the ocean.  

Watch for a special post from children's book author, Patricia Newman. 

Meanwhile, learn how 

you can help from this video.