My name is Arthur Barraza. I'm a graduate student in the Shark Lab at Cal State Long Beach.
I study Green Sea Turtles that live in San Diego bay and Seal Beach,
and I try to find out what kind of heavy metals and pesticide pollutants they have in their body.
The Green Sea Turtles are worldwide considered endangered.
In this region, they are considered threatened. So, They're species of concern, and
this is actually the most north that they are, because they actually use the effluent of
power plants to warm-up.
 
We live in a very urban environment, and therefore, pollutants make their way into the environment
through urban effluence.
Once they get into the environment, things like fish, bacteria
pick up these pollutants, get eaten by larger fish, or
get absorbed by plants, which then get eaten by sea turtles.
So that's how these pollutants can enter through the environment and end up in sea turtles bodies.
Recently we have found that while Green Sea Turtles don't have many of the don't have many of the
pesticides in their body, they have more of the heavy metals, such as
Zinc, Silver, and Cadmium.
And cadmium comes, most of the time,
from cigarette butts that are thrown into the water.
Not only that, but many of the pollutants that would affect organisms like
sea turtles can actually affect people.
For example, high amounts of Cadmium can be detrimental to your health.
LA is such a populated and congested area that a lot of the pollution that comes from it
could be entering our environment,
and a study like mine is important in order to understand the risk that
that pollution can cost with something threatened like Green Sea Turtles.
