So does the aquarium industry. The outbreak of giant African snails in Florida or the caulerpa taxifolia clone, an alga taking over the Mediterranean, originated not in ballast, but from aquarium tanks. All these sources must be included in our response, policy and research. But at a more immediate level, we must grasp the root of the problem. Then consider how San Francisco Bay is approaching 300 exotics.
Faster crossings let more species survive, reproduce, make connections, and take baggage.
The fall of trade walls brings global exposure to once quiet seaside ports, and vice-versa. In the ballast water of timber cargo ships traveling between Coos Bay, Oregon and Japan, researchers found 367 species of living animals and plants. That's a single route. Consider how larger ports, say Norfolk and Baltimore, receive more than 12 million metric tons of foreign ballast water per year, originating in 48 different foreign ports, and 90 percent of them carried live organisms, including barnacles, clams, mussels, copepods, diatoms and juvenile fish. Worldwide, it is estimated that tens of thousands of ships carry several thousand species daily.