Marine Debris is on the Rise

We had more sightings of garbage than we did of marine mammals during our research surveys in 2007 on Monterey Bay. We had 53 sightings of garbage and only 40 sightings of marine mammals.

Below is a breakdown of the type of garbage for each sighting in 2007:
53 Total Sightings of Garbage:

Breakdown by type:
Total of 15 sightings of balloons
Total of 1 sightings of cardboard
Total of 15 sightings of paper
Total of 20 sightings of plastic
Total of 2 sightings of Styrofoam. As you know balloons are a pet peeve of mine but also plastic shopping bags. Plastic bags kill an estimated 100,000 marine animals annually. so please choose to use reusable and cloth shopping bags instead.