They have a lateral line down their whole body that senses motion, but maybe it does more than that.
SYLVIA EARLEI’m friends with James Cameron. We’ve spent time together over the years because he is a diver and explorer and in his heart of hearts a biologist. We run into each other at scientific conferences.
More Sylvia Earle Quotes
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Sharks are beautiful animals, and if you’re lucky enough to see lots of them, that means that you’re in a healthy ocean.
SYLVIA EARLE -
It’s mainly the high-end luxury market now that drives much of the fishing in the sea. It’s not feeding the starving millions. It’s feeding a luxury market.
SYLVIA EARLE -
It’s akin to using a bulldozer to catch a butterfly, destroying a whole ecosystem for the sake of a few pounds of protein. We wouldn’t do this on land, so why do it in the oceans?
SYLVIA EARLE -
For humans, the Arctic is a harshly inhospitable place, but the conditions there are precisely what polar bears require to survive – and thrive. ‘Harsh’ to us is ‘home’ for them.
SYLVIA EARLE -
On a sea floor that looks like a sandy mud bottom, that at first glance might appear to be sand and mud, when you look closely and sit there as I do for a while and just wait, all sorts of creatures show themselves, with little heads popping out of the sand. It is a metropolis.
SYLVIA EARLE -
You should be afraid if you are in the ocean and don’t see sharks.
SYLVIA EARLE -
In terms of personal choices, let’s all think more carefully about where we get our protein from.
SYLVIA EARLE -
I actually love diving at night; you see a lot of fish then that you don’t see in the daytime.
SYLVIA EARLE -
Since the middle of the 20th century, more has been learnt about the ocean than during all preceding human history; at the same time, more has been lost.
SYLVIA EARLE -
If you peer beneath the bits and pieces of the moss, you’ll see toads, small insects, a whole host of life that prospers in that miniature environment.
SYLVIA EARLE -
There is a terribly terrestrial mindset about what we need to do to take care of the planet.
SYLVIA EARLE -
I personally have stopped eating seafood.
SYLVIA EARLE -
The sudden release of five million barrels of oil, enormous quantities of methane and two million gallons of toxic dispersants into an already greatly stressed Gulf of Mexico will permanently alter the nature of the area.
SYLVIA EARLE -
There are a few oysters in Chesapeake Bay. Half the coral reefs are still in pretty good shape, a jeweled belt around the middle of the planet. There’s still time, but not a lot, to turn things around.
SYLVIA EARLE -
A lumberman will look at a forest and see so many board feet of lumber. I see a living city.
SYLVIA EARLE






