A teenage diver found tons of golf ball accumulating on the seafloor off Pebble Beach, near Carmel,
A teenage diver found tons of golf ball accumulating on the seafloor off Pebble Beach, near Carmel, California, a beach very close a Golf Club.She, we the helpt of an expert, and volunters, removed 39,602 golf balls from intertidal and nearshore environments near Carmel, California, and combined with concurrent cleanup efforts, they report the retrieval of 50,681 balls, approximately 2.5 tons of debris.- A harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) swimming near a dense aggregation of golf balls, and a threatened southern sea otter (Enhydra lutris nereis) handles a golf ball.According to authors of the study, golf ball pollution is likely an underreported problem associatedwith coastal courses worldwide. Nearshore marine environments inclose proximity to golf courses may similarly accumulate debris andshould be surveyed to develop context-dependent mitigation strategies.Marine plastic pollution is a diffuse and seemingly intractable globalproblem, but the identification and remediation of known point sourcesof pollution is a tangible step in reducing the deleterious impacts ofanthropogenic activity on marine systemsPhoto: Several examples of dense aggregations of hundreds of golf balls encountered in the nearshore environment at the Pebble Beach study site.Reference: Kewer et al., 2019. Quantifying marine debris associated with coastal golf coursesMarine Pollution Bulletin. [Photo description: dense aggregations of golf balls] -- source link
#phoca vitulina#harbor sea#marine litter#plastic pollution#plastic debris