When we visited the National Aquarium, I felt sure of two things: 1) I was sympathetic to the plight of the endangered animals and ecosystems on display. 2) I was glad that the animals were behind glass (at that moment, but in general I wish they were free).
As someone who has enjoyed studying water and aquatic ecosystems, it might seem natural to become a marine biologist, but it is difficult for me to move past my fear of being gobbled up by a crazy critter the moment my body enters the water.
We often worry about our increasingly sedentary lifestyles, but that’s what coral do best! Coral polyps attach themselves to the sea floor and then build limestone skeletons, which leads to coral reefs!
For the sake of threatened organisms and ecosystems, however, we all must “take the plunge” and realize that they are more than just predators—they are essential parts of our natural world. We need not only to end overfishing and poor fishing practices, such as dredging and trawling, but to encourage attitude changes about aquatic life
Let’s take sharks, for example. One display in the aquarium asked visitors to reconsider these notorious fish, pointing out that you’re more likely to get hit by a car on the way to the beach than to be eaten by a shark. Sharks do not seek out human victims, but instead may mistake them for their natural prey, such as seals. Rather than seeing sharks as bloodthirsty, mindlessly belligerent predators, we should think of them as a natural part of a healthy ecosystem and the victim of poor decisions by humans.
