And that's all legal. There is, in addition, a growing scourge of illegal fishing and illegal trade in seafood and other marine products. South African officials last year confiscated 13,000 abalone that had been illegally taken. Almost half of marine pollution flows into the sea from rivers and estuaries. A relatively new addition to the marine environment is the scourge of persistent organic pollutants, such as DDT and PCBs.
POPs migrate by air and fall onto into the water in the colder regions.
A recent survey of Baffin Island-based Inuit people, who eat a lot of fish, walrus and seal meat, found dramatically elevated blood levels of two agricultural insecticides that are not used in that region and were banned in the United States in the 1980s. In March, the State Department released a really quite alarming report on coral reef bleaching. For example, it killed 80 percent of the coral in the reefs around the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. The report explains that an increase in ocean temperatures brought on by climate change appears to have been the leading culprit. Coral reefs are among the world's richest, most productive ecosystems.