Oceans 4Ever

Good Monday morning, Ocean Lovers!

We’ve been waiting to bring you this for weeks, and are excited that day one of O4E’s Summer Sharktakular 2010 - our shark-week-done-right – is finally here.

All week, we’re delving into the mysterious, wonderous and perilous world of sharks – so get ready to learn something you don’t already know, and share something you do about these great creatures who are now facing great danger, and need our help.

Wait. Help – the most-feared predator of the ocean needs help from we humans? Are sharks in some kind of trouble?

Indeed they are, and WE are a big part of the problem. We have to solve it. We’ll show you why.

Marine biologist and science blogger David Shiffman

This Tour de Shark (superorder: Selachimorpha) is hosted by none other than David “Why Sharks Matter” Shiffman, marine biologist, shark conservationist and science blogger over at Southern Fried Science.

David will bring us a three-part series on shark conservation that kicks off tomorrow with THE PROBLEM – a look at what sharks, the “big dogs” of the ocean, are facing in their habitat today that threatens their lives and the future of their species.

But that’s just the beginning. With the help of some amazing guest-bloggers from around the world, we’ll celebrate and examine the lives of sharks through humor (with Australian shark cartoonist and surfer Phil Watson), movies (with underwater/wildlife filmmaker Richard Theiss), fiction (with NY Times bestselling author Steve Alten) and tons more.

And what shark conservation week would be complete without the goodies? That means CONTESTS!

Yes, they’re going all week, here on O4E, with David on Twitter - who will tweet shark trivia contests all week, with questions getting harder and prizes getting bigger each day. Follow him and look for each contest’s announcement – one hour prior to the question – and be the first to tweet your answer to win! He’s already begun, so follow him now for your chance at some great swag – and stay glued to O4E for pop-up contests all week.

And of course, Alexa has to have her two cents on sharks – their situation is one of her biggest ocean conservation interests, which is why she created the Sharktakular. This was all her idea – and she’s up next with her thoughts.

Thanks for coming along on this toothy, streamlined ride with us…

it’s going to be Sharktastic!

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Hey, Ocean Lovers!

We hope you’re having a great Fourth of July Weekend. We’d like to make this a Sharky Fourth – before it’s too late – and make a special announcement:

July 19th will begin our Summer Sharktakular shark conservation and education week here on O4E.

 But wait, the fun kicks off right NOW!

We are very excited to welcome shark scientist David “Why Sharks Matter” Shiffman of the blog Southern Fried Science (among other things) to our pages as our host for this amazing, fun, sharktastic week filled with all kinds of stuff you have just never heard before about sharks. We’ll be hearing from all kinds of cool shark people and we’re kicking it off with…a CONTEST!

That’s right, starting right now and ending July 12th, you can enter our Summer Sharktakular Photo Contest and win some awesome prizes.

The contest goes like this: you make a shark conservation poster with a message (example: “protect the sharks” is fine, but we want to see creativity and how much you have learned about how sharks REALLY matter). Then, take a photo of you with your poster and emal it to the fabulous David Shiffman (his email address is whysharksmatter [at] gmail [dot] com) by July 12th, 2010.

Here is all the important stuff, including the official rules and the PRIZES:

1) Make a sign or banner with a shark conservation message as exampled above. Nothing including racism or violence is allowed.

2) Take a photograph that includes you with your poster or banner. Have any background you like but get creative!

3) E-mail the photo to David (email listed above) before 5:00 p.m. eastern standard time on Monday, July 12. Your e-mail MUST include the information listed below in order to be eligible to win.

A) Your name (first name and last initial is acceptable if you have privacy concerns), hometown, and occupation (if student, please list your grade).

B)  This sentence- “I give David Shiffman and Oceans 4Ever permission to display this photograph on Southern Fried Science, Oceans 4Ever and in possible future not-for-profit shark conservation initiatives”

C) A sentence or two about why you care about sharks and why they should be protected.

4) All photos will be displayed on Southern Fried Science. They will be voted on by a panel of judges that includes David, Cindy, myself and other ocean bloggers and famous shark-o-philes.

5) The winners will be announced on O4E on July 23 at noon eastern standard time.

Anyone (no age or location restrictions) is eligible to enter. Tell your friends!

OK, now here are the PRIZES you can win!

1st place will have a WildAid anti-finning billboard in China donated in their name (value- $100)

2nd place will win an Iemanya Oceanica Adopt-A-Shark packet (value- $50)

3rd place will win a Southern Fried Science “Sharks Matter” water bottle (value- $25)

Plus, I have a few prizes I have picked out especially for the Sharktakular, and I will surpise you with them during the week of July 19th, so stay tuned!

So enter now and start working on your poster! Good luck!

~Alexa

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This past Sunday, June 27th, we embarked on a trash finding and collecting mission around our lake, as part of a project we did with fellow ocean blogger Sara Bayles of The Daily Ocean.

We really had no idea how much trash was hiding in plain sight.

More on that in a minute.

First, we have to thank Sara, whose year-or-so long experiment to collect trash on 365 non-consecutive days for 20 minutes each time, weigh it, analyze it and blog it, has opened our eyes to the reality of the trash – and plastic – problem we have going on along our shores (and that means everywhere else, too).

Sara does her clean-up along the coastline near the Santa Monica Pier and lifeguard tower 26 in Santa Monica, California. This ability she has to open the public’s eyes to the alarming amount of not only trash but PLASTIC in this trash made her a finalist in Oceana’s Ocean Heroes Award 2010.  Sara has collected 510 pounds of trash in 129 days so far.

No, that was not a typo.

We made a short video of our clean-up:

For the full scoop, head on over to Sara’s post on our joint effort for her clean-up’s totals, our detailed list of what we found and much more. It was SO alarming and SO interesting that we are going to do a lot more clean-ups, and a monthly clean-up with Sara, lake-to-ocean-style. Thank you, Sara, and we can’t wait for more!

Want to clean up with us? Want to do a long-distance co-clean-up with O4E and The Daily Ocean? Get in touch and let’s talk some trash!

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