Hello Ocean Peeps! Sorry again for missing the meeting yesterday. I have been sick the past couple of days but I do have all the info. needed to get started on our first project. We need your vote on our outreach activity and also our volunteer event for this month. Descriptions of both are listed below:
Options for Outreach Activity:
1.
Bottom Trawling: Bottom trawling is a practice used by shrimp fishermen that is destroying enormous amounts of marine life and their habitat as well. For every 1 lb. of shrimp gathered, up to 15 lbs. of bycatch are destroyed. Some ways of helping: Getting the word out, we could make a phamplet to hand out to inform others. We could join up with the engineering organizations and also other marine conservation organizations in the area to see who could come up with a better design/method for reducing bycatch in nets; kind of like a contest.
2.
Overfishing: This is a big problem around the world and especially in the Gulf of Mexico. Red Snapper, along with other fish species (tuna, salmon, red drum, etc…) are being fished at unsustainable levels. If something isn’t done, the entire fish stock is in danger of collapsing beyond repair. It is within our control now to bring more attention to the issue and raise awareness. Some ways of helping include: tabling(handing out literature, signing petitions (we can set a petition out at the table and have people sign it if they are concerned about the issue) We can make t-shirts/buttons/stickers that advertise our position. We could handwrite letters to the people involved in reforming the bill about fishery management
Options for Volunteer Event:
1.
Storm Drain Marking: This consists of volunteers going out into neighborhoods and marking storm drain inlets with tiles saying, "No Dumping, Drains to Creek"
2.
Adopt a Creek CleanUp: As part of the SAFEOceans program, we are already going to adopt part of Waller Creek. If you guys want to go ahead and do our first creek cleanup this month, this would be the option to pick. Supplies will be provided and everyone will be assigned a portion of the creek to clean.
3.
Town Lake Canoe CleanUp: This consists of groups of two going out in canoes to pick up trash along the sides of Town Lake. It would take roughly 4 hours and would also be free.
These need to be decided on no later than next Monday. I would prefer that we decided this week so we can actually get started next week. Please choose one option from the outreach event and one from the volunteer choices and email me your vote this week:
oceanadventurer@mail.utexas.eduRob will also be giving us info on our social event at the next meeting, feel free to bring any ideas for that as well. That's it for now.
Dues of $10/semester are due at the next meeting as well, October 9, 2006.Other than that, everything is going well, let me know if you have any questions and good luck on tests this week!
