Now, with urbanization and the destruction of natural habitats, our beaches are getting worse that ever.There are two main factors that affect our beaches – pollution and poaching. Let’s take a closer look at these factors.

Pollution:

Pollution is the contamination of water bodies, when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into natural aquatic habitats. These pollutants are alien and harmful to the marine life and damages not only the individual species, but the whole ecosystem and habitat of the marine animals. Chemicals may just kill these creatures, or they may get suffocated or cut by plastic bags and fish hooks thrown into their habitat.Unfortunately, water pollution is so common that it can be found almost anywhere human civilization is found. It is a worldwide problem that seems impossible to be stopped

1. Oil Spills

Oil spills are major issues that cause damage to the ecosystem that can take years to heal. They are caused by the leakage of oil from oil tankers and sea miners. Oil is a harmful chemical that can completely destroy the whole area affected. It kills animals slowly and agonizingly. Marine birds suffer as well.

Here’s how marine birds are affected by oil spills:
The oil penetrates into the structure of the plumage of birds, reducing its insulating ability, thus making the birds more vulnerable to temperature changes and much less buoyant in the water. It also impairs or disables birds' flight abilities to forage and escape from predators. Birds ingest the oil and this causes problems in the digestive system. Less than 1% of birds affected by the oil spill survive. Those that survive are able to recover because of human intervention. Sad, isn’t it? Other marine animals are affected in similar ways as the seabirds. Sea otters and seals are some of them. You can take a look at an example of a serious oil spill that affected Gulf of Mexico here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill



2. Industrial waste
With growing populations and increasing demand for modern products and devices, our industries have been rapidly forming. However, land space has become scarcer and scarcer, and besides deforestation,our factories have been looking at other ways of disposing industrial waste, such as our beaches and oceans.

Factories and industries choosing to dump unwanted chemicals and materials into nearby water bodies has become more widespread. This is a convenient but harmful way to get rid of waste, without using up the money and resources and sacrificing land for dumping waste.

Industrial waste usually contains harmful chemicals that affects marine wildlife.

3. Littering
Littering has become a commodity nowadays – and all thanks to us. Litter thrown carelessly along the beach and in the ocean can be seen strewn along the beach. So what effects does this litter have on our beaches and us? Litter on the beach is carried away further from land when high tide arrives. Creatures in the ocean mistake plastic bags, aluminium cans and others as food, swallowing them. Some even slowly get suffocated.To better understand the effect of litter on sea creatures, look at these pictures:



Somehow, litter is later brought back to the shore by the direction of wind and waves. The cycle goes on. Some litter contain harmful chemicals to the environment. These chemicals are slowly released into the habitat under the influence of moisture at the beach.

4. Poaching:

Poaching means the killing or illegal catching of animals or creatures. At the beach, it has become even more common to see people catching crabs or fish near the beach. The problem is, most are unaware that what they are doing is wrong. Here are the effects of poaching on the beach: When many creatures are removed from the beach habitat, the ecosystem becomes unbalanced. As the many different living populations are interdependent, they rely on each other for food. With human interference, the population is unstabilised and the beach community can crash when even only one kind of population is removed. This is also a case of animal cruelty, as creatures from the beach that are brought home by people usually do not survive. They are given inadequate food, water and shelter and suffer from the poor conditions.

Other problems:

There are also other problems that affect life at the beach. Here, we are going to mention one classic example.The victim? Sea turtles. As you know, these turtles travel to beaches to lay their eggs. When the eggs hatch, they usually do so during the night. Once out of the nest, the hatchlings find their way to the ocean, by heading towards the brightest horizon. Thus, artificial lights on nesting beaches can mean death to the young turtles as they may confuse them and cause them to lose their way.

Beach pollution, chemicals and bacteria form waste on the beach and spread to other areas affecting other habitats and eco-systems. Also, because of this, people are unable to carry out recreational activities. Bacteria and chemicals from this waste may also lead into our water sources and cause water pollution, thus affecting our daily lives.