Turtle Island Restoration Network (TIRN) is hosting the 2nd annual Hatchling Hustle on Galveston Island. The Hatchling Hustle is a 5K run and 1 mile fun run on the Babe’s Beach, 6285 Seawall, Galveston, Texas between 61st Street Fishing Pier and Galveston Fishing Pier. This year, the event will occur on Saturday, March 23rd, 2024 from 7 to 9:30 a.m. TIRN is using the Hatchling Hustle to educate the public about the endangered sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico, specifically br

The facts about single-use plastic straws: average lifespan is less than 30 minutes; Americans use 390 to 500 million single use plastic straws per day - enough to wrap around the earth 2.5 times; plastic straws take 200-500 years to decompose; and plastic straws are not recyclable. Turtle Island Restoration Network (TIRN), an ocean conservation group in Galveston is joining a worldwide movement to protect the environment from an increasingly urgent threat: single-use pl

If you live in Galveston or visited our island over the past decade, you most likely have had an experience with seaweed. Even though it sometimes disrupts our surfing, swimming, or beach activities, seaweed is a very valuable resource for wildlife. When seaweed is removed, the beach atmosphere changes, leaving many animals and plants without a place to live and eat. Sargassum is on our beaches; the brown or dark green macroalgae that floats on the surface of the ocean and is

I am a 10-year veteran, IBC Galvestonian and still eagerly exploring and bringing stories back to my chosen community to show us all how large, diverse, and exciting our own backyard can be. I am writing this from an adventure along the Texas Coast finding new stories and learning about the ways we help and hurt our environment along the way. But this is not a story of only beautiful scenery and luscious Texas vistas; this is a story of diesel exhaust, trashy highways, and po

Climate change is a growing concern in our society, spurred by rising temperatures, devastating natural disasters, catastrophic predictions, and counter-productive environmental policies enacted by President Trump in recent years. Climate change deniers exist among us, including Texas Senator Ted Cruz. According to the Texas Tribune, Cruz stated in 2015 that “global warming alarmists are the equivalent of the flat-earthers.” In effect, he was comparing a phenomenon recognized

According to recent estimates, over 8 million tons of plastic enter our oceans every year. Over 150 million metric tons of plastic currently circulate our oceans. The United Nations stated during a General Assembly high-level meeting that we have until 2030 to prevent irreversible damage from climate change. Hundreds of thousands of whales, sea turtles, fish, sharks, and seabirds die each year from ingesting plastic. Species that have been inhabiting the earth for millions o

As scientists are continuously evaluating the vital signs of our Earth, the diagnoses are coming back less and less promising if we continue our society’s way of life in this unsustainable direction. So, we’ve all heard it before – climate change. There are seemingly endless lists of negative ramifications that are the result of human perturbation on natural ecosystems including the alteration of land use in physical and chemical ways. Due to anthropogenic activity (industri

What did you do? Did you touch a soul and breathe a life into mind? One warm flicker so he could get it, now your folding cadence as the...

It’s a warm Thursday morning as I pull up to Seeding Galveston on 33rd and N Avenue. The sun hasn’t fully come out yet; Seeding Galveston co-founder Debby, who will be giving me a tour of the farm, warned me to come by before it gets too hot. I’m excited to see the turkeys, goats, and chickens that live there, but I’m a little nervous about the tour. I don’t know the first thing about gardening, farming, or what composting even really is. I’m a city girl, and it shows. I app