The element of life

Did you know that a bag hidden in dead crabs, jellyfish and horseshoe crabs in a car trunk for more than two weeks during the summer, creating a smell that is known to curl your toenails? I did not know. Well, at least not specific to the occasion.

I was 7 years old and on my first visit to the New Jersey coast. Before my "first date" with the ocean, I had already acquired a great respect for the water. My grandfather had a house on the Hudson Riverwhere I spent countless days fishing and exploring. But I was never really knew how powerful, big and intimidating was the ocean.

While my parents were behind me, I waded into the Atlantic. It was much colder than I expected. I went out into the surf until the water came up to my knees, then grabbed my toes dug into the sand and called for my first wave.

When my mother warned, "Be careful," I observed a dark-blue waves rolling towards me. As if a rookie rider, INervously stood my ground, as my "bull" charged. I stood only four feet tall and weighed only sixty-five pounds. This "wall of water" like a tsunami looked at me. I started to lose my cool and chicken out when the waves were growing rapidly before my eyes. Since the peak of the wave began to reach to me like a hand, pulled the pull on my ankle, the beach sucking on my feet.

My parents have warned me, the pull, but I never thought it was so powerful. The sameForce that drew on my toothpick legs was the same force that get in the situation, a whole house and it is to the sea as fast as a mother spoon-feed their babies. The sea is in a position to split the largest ocean liners as easily as it swims a starfish on the beach.

Just as I was appalled that the undertow was me in the abyss of my opponent matching "Sucking cargo-lined" I slap in the face. It was a liquid punch.

Like a double-teamed to address theUndertow knocked my feet under me as the wave hit from the front. I was in the sand when the waves swept over me thrown.

Being attacked by water has its own unique quality and frightening. Raging water prolongs the agony: it does not simply pass by his victim, after she meets. If by a violent wave is first swallowed one and then carried along with it, while still ailing beaten. And worst of all, she steals all the vital oxygen.

I was thrown on the beachFace first like a castaway, and while I gasped for air, put the shaft back gently into the sea. As I choked himself and wiped the stinging salt from my eyes, I heard my parents in harmony comment, "We told you so."

Feeling rather intimidated and physically drained at this point, I decided to explore the coastline. For me, combing the beach was like discovering a whole new planet. With each wave, a new creature was pushed ashore. Jellyfish, clams, but the fiddler crabsmost fascinating of them all were the horseshoe crabs.

If you hold a horseshoe crab, one holding a creature, whose family tree includes more than 250 million years. This living fossil has its common name from the "U" or horseshoe shape of its shell, which is one of the tank. The tank is the color of sand or mud to the animal in contrast with its surroundings. Two pairs of eyes are on the rounded front part of the carapace. Those eyes are like the combination of insects. They allowto see the animal in all directions and to see movement.

A long, sharp spear-like tail that resembles a defense weapon lies behind the horseshoe crab, but it is simply used to plow the crab through the sand to act as a rudder and right of the cancer, when he tipped over accidentally.

Horseshoe crabs are not crabs at all, they are scorpions, spiders, ticks and land together. Once killed will be used as fertilizer, horseshoe crabs are now under intensive study in the medicalProfession.

help in the early 1950s, scientists discovered that a Frederick Bang horseshoe crab's blue blood metallic special cells that kill certain types of bacteria contains. If one crab gets a wound, the cells swarm to the area to form a clot and kill the invading bacteria. Bang was able to separate the chemical in the blood cells, blood clots formed in the presence of bacteria.

During the summer months, horseshoe crab "Blood Drives are conducted in shallow watersfrom the Mid-Atlantic coast. Following collection of the crabs, they are then returned to the water. In a bay on the Cape Cod, more than 80,000 crabs during a season Bled.

The blood is then sold for research with a price tag of up to $ 15,000 a Quart! Unfortunately, horseshoe crabs in record numbers for use as bait for eel and whelk fisheries off the coast of the Atlantic coast killed. This has been linked to drastic decline of the migratory shorebirds that feedon horseshoe crab eggs. As the crabs lay their eggs, birds plunge into ravines and on this unprecedented energy. This festival will add the fat, which is important for the birds 6.000 miles journey from South America to their Arctic breeding grounds. In the past, the sheer enormity of the crab population to ensure new generations of birds and crabs, but this delicate balance is now impaired.

I took a Frisbee-size horseshoe crab by its dagger-like tail and laid himin my "Crayola Crayon" garment bag. All these new creatures fascinated me so much that I have it on my own.

Warned about jellyfish, I drew a couple of them with my plastic shovel sand to not stung, and went into the sack. I then top of the garment bag with a couple of fiddler crabs. Knowing that this collection would be against the wishes of my parents, I mean treasures, hidden by different toys for the beach on them, then put the bag in the spare tireCompartment of our car.

As of mid-August, weeks went by, began a "fishy" smell to follow us everywhere. While overheard my parents at a loss to guess what was the smell, I did not know it was because of my stash.

During the five-hour drive home, the only topic of conversation was based on the terrible stench. Nevertheless, I have no idea just peered out the car window and stared at the passing trees.

A few days after we returned home, my father was about himself, his search andto sell the car 'cheap as it is. " Then I heard him yell, "Rusty!" After hearing the sound of his voice, I did not enjoy the last few seconds into trouble. Then, before I could answer, my father called out of the driveway, "What the hell is in your beach bag?"

Relieved that it was all he wanted to know, I ran to the car and said, "Oh thanks, I forgot, I left it there, I have it from the beach." When I got closer, I could not understand why my father kept my clothes bagdrawstring through his fingertips. When he held the "wet" bag in front of him, he was a terrible expression on his face as if he was for much longer arms like.

Then I realized why he was mad. The stench was at a level above anything I have ever known. If a smell could be a form of energy, this would have nuclear energy. Flies would not even approach the bag. It is rumored that the flies demonstrated themselves for better working conditions. Forced to clean, the sports bag wasenough for me to lose all interest in their contents, but I never lost my love for the ocean.

The oceans cover about 70% of the earth's surface and contain about 97% of the world water supply. The average ocean depth is two and a half miles with a maximum of seven miles. It was during these salty seas, life on Earth accumulates first as a frothy foam on the banks of the dry land about three and a half billion years ago.

Unfortunately, over-exploitation of their resources on this scarredSeas. Schools of fish, once assumed to be infinite in wealth will disappear before our eyes. Each year, our 1.2 million large fishing vessels returning from sea mining smaller and smaller catches.

to take as marine life struggles we continue to hold feet to pollute their waters. According to a report by the publishers of the oil spill intelligence report, about 32.2 million gallons oil were worldwide in the marine and freshwater environments spilled during 1999 alone. Thetoxic chemical components may affect negatively the oil marine life and physical damage to their habitat.

The oceans are Earth life support system. You are on the earth rudder, controlling climate, temperature and the weather and the production of about seventy-five percent of the planetary atmospheric oxygen. They are the largest source of clouds, soft rain and snow, the earth is fresh water supply is filled. But let us have more space than our researchSeas.

Equally important to the quality of our life is the condition of all our waters. Because of their smaller size, bays, rivers, streams and lakes respond much faster to pollutants than a vast sea. Inland waters are polluted, a higher chance because waterfront property is considered prime real estate. And wherever we find people we can find their rubbish.

On 16 September 1999 Hurricane Floyd devastated the east coast of the United States, North SpankingCarolina especially hard. Hurricane Floyd dumped 15-20 inches and rain battered the coast of North Carolina to create high storm surges more than 10 meters.

The majority of North Carolina hog farms in the eastern third of the state in an environmentally sensitive wetlands and wetlands located. On these farms, millions of pounds of waste and manure from hog barns in lagoons are flushed. Hurricane Floyd caused record rainfall this lagoon to spill overWaterways.

Some of the effects on the environment of these spillovers are nitrogen and phosphorus, groundwater and drinking water contamination and air pollution. Nitrogen and phosphorus promote algal growth, which robs the water of oxygen, killing fish and other aquatic species. The concentration of nitrate in groundwater is found on the spot dangerous to humans, especially pregnant women and babies, and is associated with a number of miscarriages and "blueBaby Syndrome "(a disease that the ability of blood to absorb oxygen).

Pathogens (pathogens), such as Pfiesteria, a microorganism that poisonous fish kills and then eats their meat is associated with nitrogen and phosphorus-polluted water as possible. And recent studies have shown that the smell and the associated air pollution from hog factories are now linked effects on human health. What produce the whole human population of most towns in a year, equivalent tothe amount of North Carolina's pork produced in a day (about 50,000 tons of feces and urine per day).

With the number of chemicals in our waterways, communities that use them to add more chlorine for drinking water to purify the water. There is a very chemically active chlorine, it combines with these other chemicals in the form of new families of chemicals, most of which are not tested by the water and facilities are potential carcinogens.

While growing along theHudson River, I have sailed its waters seen many changes take place. This 315 - mile long river is after 17 Century English explorer Henry Hudson named. Hudson is to discover than the first, the Hudson River credited, but many other different opinion to learn that one of Hudson's men back from a scouting mission with an arrow through the neck.

But I guess there was not enough arrows, because in our white man so we were now several hundred years later we are still trying toSqueeze out every tiny scrap of land their banks arise.

General Electric announced that "bring good things of life" company, more than two million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls, PCB's dumped into the Hudson River. The PCB contamination along the river with its inhabitants. PCBs are suspected human carcinogen associated with liver, his kidneys and nervous disorders.

Fifty miles south of the GE plant, Exxon International had been caught red-handed unloading of fuel into theHudson River. The Hudson River Keepers to see a river organization, blew the whistle on this illegal activity.

750-foot tanker Exxon gave way to regular load of Aruba for petroleum products such as kerosene. After off-loading in New Jersey, the tankers would travel 90 miles on the Hudson River Park West, New York, rinse out their oil tanks and load the fresh water they would use in Aruba refinery from Exxon.

In the 1970.s, the General Motors plant in Tarrytown, New York,about fifty miles south of West Park, regularly introduced color into the flow. Fisherman setting nets near the General Motors plant could tell what color the cars were painted that day simply by the color of the water.

But to my surprise I learned that industrial pollution is not always a crime. Often, the people, the very mention of the river their home, are the culprit. For example, a funeral home in the town of Newburgh, New York was found fulfillment of humanBlood from the "office" in the Hudson.

The thought of the people desecrate the very place they live, confused me. Dogs also know enough not to soil where they sleep.

Strict rules, ecological monitoring and above all the concern and action of individuals who love the river, have contributed to the Hudson River come a long way. As an open sewer in the 1960s, the Hudson now produces more fish per hectare, and biomass per gallon than any other big mouth in the North Atlantic.With the lower 150 miles of the Hudson estuary by tides (a branch of the ocean), freshwater fish such as bass and trout, share the waters with seals, dolphins, sharks and the occasional whale. The Hudson is also home to scores of migratory species such as shad, striped bass, herring and blue-clawed frog crabs. Each year, more and more feed back to the bald eagles from the Hudson's shore. Although she's from the area of PCBs and other pollutants, I have now wiped out looked meGrandfather's living room window in Port Ewen, New York to see half a dozen bald eagles at one time.

All inland waters are just as important and sacred as the Hudson River, and they should all be valued and protected, not only for governments but also by the individuals living on the banks.

We humans are happy to exist, mankind would never have graced this planet, if not for water. No other planet in our Solar System has liquid water, and what should never be forgotten thatWater is the element of life. Water can no life there, but life can not exist without water.