My first idea for an internship got shot down and I had a hard time thinking of what else would be good. I finally settled on doing a self led internship. I plan on cleaning up Lake Davidson. Lake Davidson is a small lake that was created when I-77 was built across Lake Norman. It is completely cut off from the main lake. Because of its isolation it is much more vulnerable and volatile environment. There is also a massive amount of litter from fishermen, people enjoying the lake, and from the highway traffic. I plan on cleaning up the lake both soft plastics and regular trash. I have a kayak that I plan on paddling around the bank of the lake and picking up trash. Another interesting thing that I will be doing soon is a fish dissection in Biology. I am catching bass from a local lake and will be dissecting them with the 10th grade class. I am interested in finding out if there are any soft plastics in the stomachs of the fish.
Link to my common hour presentation-
https://docs.google.com/a/woodlawnschool.org/presentation/d/1OkWk6AOJyoWtFidAMt1IikZI5uO5M2V9UMUgamr3b8I/edit?usp=sharing Been a little while since I updated this blog, so I figured I would tell y'all about what I have been doing for the past couple of weeks. The main thing I have been doing is looking for an internship. I had originally planned to intern at a local bait and tackle company. However the owner said he didn't need any extra help. I had pretty much planned on that working so I was stumped as to what else I could do. I looked into local wildlife and especially waterway activism groups in the area. I found that there were some organized efforts, but they were far apart and not really what I was looking for. I have settled on doing a self led internship. I will post more about it in an internship update.
The weather is heating up and so is the bass fishing. With that the amount of soft plastics litter is becoming more noticeable. I have been finding more and more discarded soft plastics on the banks of a couple of ponds I fish. Below is a picture of one I found. I found more, but forgot to get photos.
I have a couple things going on my with my capstone at the moment. I am currently working on updating my website. I plan to add more pictures and overall make it more appealing and easy to navigate. I am also working on getting an internship for internship week. My plan right now is to approach the owner of a local bait and tackle shop. I have already been there before and talked to the owner about fishing. If he agrees to it then I plan on talking to the customers about their recycling habits. It will also be interesting to see how a small business is run, because that is what I hope to pursue in college.
I have created a website for the Eko Stik Lure Company. On it I have all of my products for sale. I also have a way for people to recycle their old lures and to learn about the Eko Stik mission
URL: www.ekostiks.com How often do you go bass fishing on average?
-Multiple times a week -Once a week -Multiple times a month -Once a month -Other Do you fish plastic lures such as worms, creature baits, grubs, etc. -Yes -No What do you do with your lures when they are damaged and no longer fishable? -Litter (Land) -Litter (water, not including ones lost by accident while fishing) -Throw Away -Recycle into new lures -Save them Would you be willing to send in your lures to be recycled? -Yes -Yes, If it costs me no money (shipping costs are payed for) -Yes, If I get a reward for it -No Soft Plastic lures are a staple among recreational fishermen. They are cheap, plentiful, and highly effective lures. Every fisherman has bags of them in their tackle box. Every year 100 million bags of soft plastic lures are sold a year*. Each bag contains anywhere from 5-20 lures on average. Despite lures being effective they have a short life span. The sharp teeth of fish, fish hooks, and being treated roughly lead to an angler needing to constantly replace his lures. Fishermen will often see that their lure is close to breaking and will replace it. What he does with the old lure is up to the angler. Some keep the lures and throw them away, and even less recycle them. However many simply throw them in the water with little regard to their possible effects. This is due to a combination with a lack of awareness about their effects and/or not understanding the extent of the impact it is.
One of the most important ways to reduce fishing lure pollution is to educate anglers. This is a tried and true method as seen from the issue of fishing line pollution. Not even 10 years ago there was a large movement towards reducing the level of fishing line in our aquatic environments. The fishing world went from essentially zero awareness on the impact of fishing line on the environment to a movement towards preventing its pollution. This method is not unique to that topic, and I plan to use the same methods towards preventing the introduction of plastic fishing lures. If anglers are aware of the impact of their actions, and how they can help to protect the waters they love, then they will be more than willing to participate. Part of this education process will be this website itself. I want this website to be a resource for anglers to learn everything they need to know about the impact of plastic lures. Currently information is strewn about in different source ranging in credibility. My website will collect information across various credible websites, literary pieces, and research studies and provide clear and non-contradictory information in one easily navigable location. Another way I will educate anglers is by taking this information directly to them. At places they most often frequent I will set up information that will tell them concisely the impact and how they can help. There will also be a link to this website where they can learn more in depth. Now that anglers are preventing lures from getting into aquatic environments there is still the issue of what to do with them. The easiest thing to do with them would to be simply to throw them away. However these plastics break down extremely slowly, and would end of up sitting in a landfill or finding their way back into nature. This is especially wasteful as fishing lures are easily recyclable. My goal will be to collect these lures that people would otherwise throw away and recycle them. This however, is easier said than done. What I have done, and will continue to do, is contacting people on the internet and asking them to send their old lures. I am currently in the process of getting four pounds of old lures shipped to me from a single angler. This person, and many others, had built up lots of used plastics. She had no way to recycle them and didn’t want to throw them away. I also aim to set up collection points at places anglers frequent. As shown with fishing line, collection points work when they are easy and convenient. Once I have collected the old lures I will sort them and then recycle them. I will make them into new stick bait worms. These are a very popular lure type, and are always in demand. I will then sell them back to the consumers at a low price, which is possible since I will not have had to pay for the soft plastic that went into the lures. This will provide consumers with an ecologically friendly lure option. I will then provide discounts to people who donate their old lures, which can then be used to buy my lures. This will create a self sustaining method in which I have plenty of old lures and am selling the new ones. The final result will be less lures thrown out and littered. *This estimate is based on the $300,000,000 of soft plastic lures a year and an assumed price of $3 per bag. http://www.alabamarivers.org/River%20Resources/ten-facts-about-fishing-lures-and-water-quality |
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