Fish & Water - Sounds Wild
Lose the Loop

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Transcript

Helping sea lions

On a calm spring day more than 100 Steller sea lions are hauled out on the rocks of Benjamin Island north of Juneau. One young sea lion has a black band round its neck, and it doesn’t look good. It’s a fan belt, and it’s tight, cutting into the animal’s neck.

Loops in the ocean are dangerous to marine mammals – loops like this fan belt, and especially those hard plastic packing bands that secure bait boxes, big, heavy-duty rubber bands used with crab pots, and loops of rope. Pups and juveniles toss them around and swim with them, and the loops get caught around their necks. As they grow, the band cuts more and more deeply into their neck and eventually can kill the animal. Since the 1990s, more than 900 sea lions in the waters of southeast Alaska have been documented with entanglements. About half involved loops like this one, and half involved fishing gear.

In other parts of the Pacific and Atlantic, loops in the ocean also kill harbor seals, monk seals, cape fur seals and grey seals. Marine mammal biologists and concerned citizens, including Alaska students in the Ocean Guardian program at schools in Juneau and Anchorage, are working to keep loops out of the ocean. They’re cleaning up beaches and promoting the Loose the Loop message.