Humpback Whale Caught in Fishing Net Video-The Need for Biodegradable Products

The whale is a majestic animal that reflects closely our abilities to clean up the ocean and improve upon our environment. Watching this video you can see how beautiful a creature it is as it swims under water and leaps into the air (I've seen dolphins out there). In this case the netting is stuck to the face causing the animal distress. To my boating friends I would say keep an eye out for this whale and if you see it call the Coast Guard. Sounds like a good discussion this week for my sailing club. You can consider trailing at a significant and safe distance to guide authorities.

I'm a little engaged in the boating community and from what I have experienced about the personalities involved they love seeing these animals survive and thrive in their natural habitats. Once I called Sea World to inform them of an injured Sea Lion limping around in the bay. They do a great job coming out and taking a look at injured sea animals. Sometimes you can send them a videos to look at so they can assess the injury remotely. In the case of my hurt friend it looked as though it was all fat injured and to keep an eye on him.

It does open up the question of the products we use and how they impact our environment. Personally, I believe that as our climate puts pressure on us we will continue to adapt and use cleaner sources of energy, biodegradable products like nets that breakdown after their natural use lifetime, solar power, etc..... We can't really make that happen until the market creates more demand for those products and industry finds cheaper ways to manufacture them (There is a huge market waiting for solutions on a global scale).

As an example, there is a restaurant in Ocean Beach that uses paper straws. Awesome idea but they are not as functional as the damaging plastic ones.  Once a company can produce a straw that functions as good as the plastic ones and are still biodegradable and sell at a comparable price they will have a lot of eager customers in this new generation. It would be irresponsible to not switch with everything being equal.