Human Impacts

 I visited the Edmonds Beach near Bracketts Landing. This ecosystem is in a very urban and developed area of Edmonds. The ferry dock is right near the beach and so are train tracks. Downtown Edmonds is also right near the beach, there are restaurants, bars, and parking garages.

One human impact is litter, which I took pictures of. Another impact is the pollution of humans developing beach waterfront. Both of these are visual impacts because there is clear evidence of litter and beach front development. This development was also evident in the

            Edmonds Marsh which we visited a couple weeks ago.

            Sea birds, whales, and fish have been eating plastic. If this                             continues then soon the animals will feel like they are full because               of the plastic they have ingested. Shortly after they will starve to                   death because plastic contains no nutritional value. The other long               term effect of pollution is that there soon might be no marine habitat             left. If there's no marine habitat left then the animals will have to                   find new habitats and some might not find new habitats and they                   will die.

Hypothesis: If we do not regulate the amount of litter that enters the Puget Sound soon the animals that call it home will suffer.

I believe one thing that can be done is organized weekly walks that consist of 10-15 people combing the beach for litter. The goal is to decrease the amount of litter that enters the water and I think that this would greatly improve the water quality of Puget Sound.