10 Green HalloweenTips

Halloween! The staff at the N.C. Aquarium at Fort Fisher loves the frightening, fun festivities and decorations that accompany this time of year.  Visions of skeleton pirates, zombie divers and scary sea creatures dance in our heads. 

Yet, by far the most frightening thing about Halloween is the incredible amounts of waste and plastics created, used and discarded in connection with the holiday. Unfortunately, when the spooky fun ends, too much trash ends up in our landfills and polluting our waterways and ocean.

1.        Here are 10 ways you can put some green-think into your Halloween:

1.  Skip the Scary Plastic:Store-bought costumes are an easy way to get scary; but what’s scarier is that mass-produced ready-to-wear costumes from the supermarket are often made with non-recyclable chemicals and synthetic fibers that are not biodegradable. Upcycle a costume instead! Use old or donated clothing to make your costume. Make it a family project and you create memories and something original, without all the plastic and paper waste.

2.       Host a Creepy Community Costume Swap: Make it a party, invite the neighbors and foster environmental consciousness all at the same time. Your old dusty prom dress just became someone else’s awesome new “Bride of Frankenstein” costume! Register a swap date online at: https://www.greenhalloween.org/CostumeSwap/register.html

3.       Reuse a Trick or Treat Tote: Don’t buy a new plastic jack-o-lantern just to use one night. Lug your treats with a reinvented pillow case. They always hold more candy anyway! Already have an orange jack-o-lantern bucket? Use it again this year, then again next year (and the next)!

4.       Buy in Bulk: Look for candy with less packaging. This will cut down on waste and give you more for your money. Think little mini boxes versus large individually, plastic-wrapped treats. Look for brands that use recycled or recyclable packaging.

5.       Recycle the Wrapper: Approximately 598 million pounds of candy are consumed every year around Halloween, according to a report issued by Nielsen several years ago. That’s a lot of candy and a lot of trash. What to do with all the “trash” after you’ve indulged in your sweet tooth? Recycle as much of it as you can! You can bring your candy wrappers to the Aquarium and we send them to TerraCycle to be repurposed into items like purses and bags.

Upcycled candy wrapper bag from TerraCycle

6.       Keep Your Eco-Footprint Local: Purchase a pumpkin at a nearby farm. This supports the local economy and significantly reduces the fuel used for transportation in comparison to pumpkins that are mass-shipped to supermarkets.

7.       More Pumpkin, Please: When carving your pumpkin, save the seeds to make a delicious spiced or roasted fall treat. Once Halloween comes and goes, compost the fruit and to keep it out of landfills.

8.       Exercise, Don’t Drive: Instead of driving from house-to-house or street-to-street: walk! Saves gas and help take a load off the calorie spike accompanying all of those treats.

9.       DIY Décor: Halloween is the second biggest decorating holiday after Christmas, according to the National Retail Federation. Why spend money on non-recyclable products, with excess packaging? Keep it simple. Upcycle everyday household items to give them a spooky makeover. Use old sheets and some leaves or newspaper to make ghosts. Go natural with corn husks, gourds and pine cones, all of which are 100 percent compostable.

10.   Keep it Up:  No need for green behaviors to end after the 31^st. Keep it going all year. If you’ve never composted, the harvest season is a great time to begin. Use fallen leaves, pine cones, corn kernels and old jack-o-lanterns to start. Use simple do-it-yourself decorations and recycled crafts for holiday decorating in December, February or any time. Keep it local. Support organic markets whenever you can, and when you can’t, select minimal packaging and biodegradable products.

New Animals at the Aquarium

We are excited to announce the addition of two new animals to the Aquarium family!

Spotted eagle ray

Aquarium staff introduced the spotted eagle ray to his new home on July 10. The young male, called "Twister", is acclimating well to the Aquarium’s largest exhibit and his new neighbors. Visitors can easily recognize the animal by his whip-like tail fin, the fluid winging movement of his large pectoral fins, a pronounced snout, and, of course, a white polka-dot pattern on the brown dorsal body.

Spotted eagle rays can grow to 9 feet wide and weigh as much as 500 pounds. They live throughout tropical and warm waters as far north as North Carolina in the summer and as far south as Brazil. This species also lives in the Red Sea and waters surrounding the Hawaiian islands.

The species is near threatened globally. Small litter sizes, schooling tendencies and inshore habitat preferences make this species particularly vulnerable to overfishing.

Twister, a spotted eagle ray at the Aquarium.

Goliath grouper

A Goliath grouper may reach an adult weight of 400 pounds, so Aquarium staff knew it would take some clever arranging skills to be able to put their goliath grouper on exhibit. Though not fully grown, the potential size of the fish necessitated a larger exhibit with lots of room for the grouper to grow. It was decided that the grouper would be a great addition to the Blockade Runner Condor exhibit. But, portions of the replicated shipwreck would have to be removed in order to allow for goliath grouper’s growing potential.

Aquarium staff relocated fish currently living in Blockade Runner to other exhibits and set about draining the tank to cut away a large central portion of the shipwreck. Once removed, the tank was refilled and prepared for its new occupants. The goliath grouper was successfully relocated to the Blockade Runner exhibit in mid-August. 

This species is critically endangered globally. In 1990, the U.S. enacted a harvest ban to protect this vulnerable species which will hopefully allow this beautiful fish to bounce back from near extinction.

A goliath grouper at the Aquarium.

Predator vs. Prey Summer Camp: Box Turtle

Each day summer campers interact with an animal and learn about that particular animal's relationship with either it's predator or it's prey.

On day 2, the theme is "Herbivores". Campers learned about box turtles and the relationship box turtles have with their "prey" which is often fruit, vegetables, crickets and worms.

In their own words, campers describe their favorite predator-prey interaction:

"Box turtles and fruit, vegetables and crickets." -Angel
"Box turtle - crickets and leaves." -Alyssa
"A box turtle [because] they eat worms." -Skyla
"The box turtle because it was so cute to see its eyes." -Sophia
"The box turtle [was my favorite predator-prey interaction]." -Skeets

Predator Vs. Prey Summer Camp: Relationships

For the next two weeks, summer campers will learn how tough life in the animal world is. Campers are learning about animal relationships and interactions. In the animal world, you must eat or be eaten.

In their own words, campers name their favorite predator/prey relationship they've learned so far.

"My favorite predator relationship would be cows and grass." -Alexia
"Megalodons and giant squid." -Katy
"Yellow stingray and its prey [which] is fish." -Michael K.
"My favorite predator is a turtle. Turtles eat jelly fish." -Laura
"Blue heron and fish." -Sam
"My favorite predator and prey are killer whales and sea lions/seals." -Kelly
"My favorite predators are wolves. They eat deer and other wild animals." -Sydney
"Lions and zebras!" -A.J.T.
"Manta-ray and crill." -Dakota
"Deer who eat plants. I love deer and plants." -Campbell

Animal Keepers Summer Camp: Private Dive Show

As this week's summer camp sessions wrap up, campers were thrilled to get a chance to see their very own PRIVATE dive show. Behind the scenes, summer campers saw how the divers prepare the for the show and interact with animals in the Cape Fear Shoals tank. During the show, campers "talked"  with divers while they were in the water.

For many campers, this was one of their favorite activities of the week. In their own words, campers explain why they enjoyed the dive show.

"[My favorite activity was] watching the fish. I liked seeing people dive in the water with them." -Kailei
"Seeing our own private dive show [was my favorite activity] because it was interesting." -Madison
"I liked seeing the dive show because it was our very own!" -Anna
"I liked seeing the diver because all the fish were like really close to him." -Parker
"I liked seeing the scuba divers because we got to go to the very top [of the tank]." -Madison

Animal Keepers Summer Camp: Favorite Animals

Summer campers learn what it takes to be an Aquarium animal keeper during this week's session with activities like animal feeding, tank cleaning, water changing and food preparation.

Campers are granted a chance to get up-close and personal with many of the animals in the Aquarium's care.  In their own words, campers describe their favorite animal they cared for this week.

"The jelly fish because they had to be cared for in a way I didn't know." -Madison

"Today, we cared for jelly fish. I thought it was interesting how they move without a brain!" -Anna

"I cared for the invertebrates [and] cleaned their tanks." -Parker

"I liked the porcupine fish the best because he's really cute and playful. I got to feed him!" -India

"The porcupine fish [was my favorite] because they didn't eat as much and they were more patient." -Sara

"I liked caring for the puffer fish because I like them." -Kassi

One of the campers' favorites, a porcupine fish.

Animal Keepers Summer Camp: I Learned...

Animal Keepers summer campers continue to learn what it takes to care for many of the animals at the Aquarium.

From changing water to making carbon, these campers are experiencing all sorts of hands-on animal care that shows them just a little of how hard our aquarists work everyday.

In their own words campers describe something they learned this week.

"I changed water in a Q-15. [Which was] for a sea star." -Quinn
"I made carbon." -Blake
"My favorite animals were the salt marsh fish like mullets and lookdowns because I got to check the PH and saline [levels]."-Kelly
"We didn't care for a particular fish, but changed water for a whole tank." -Christopher
"We made carbon for the moon jellies. I liked it because we were helping." -Helena
"Today we tested salinity and PH [levels]." -Lilly