When 'Finding Nemo' ruined the environment or the problem of releasing our pets

By 03/04/2021 portal-3

Cuando 'Buscando a Nemo' estropeó el medioambiente o el problema de liberar nuestras mascotas

There are beautiful and well-made films, that even convey interesting ideas, and even greater awareness about the environment. However, the world is complex and intricate, and a trend instilled by a movie can have an unwanted side effect.

This was the case of the Pixar film Finding Nemo, which documented what happens when we end up releasing our pets into the environment: we cause serious imbalances in the ecosystem.

Invasive species

In the film Finding Nemo There is a scene where two fish escape down the toilet drain. Many children, upon watching the film, imitated this example and wanted to do a good deed, throwing the fish down the toilet so that they would be free. However, this was a problem, as explained JM Mulet in his book Real environmentalism:

Most home aquariums are for exotic or tropical species, which are very attractive but usually die in cold waters. The problem is that the film was also seen in Florida, so in the Caribbean right now there are colonies of scorpion fish, originally from Asia, that are causing real havoc.

And more bad news: Because it lacks the genetic ability to adapt to rapid changes in its environment, such as those resulting from current global warming, the clownfish popularized by the movie Finding Nemo It is going to be extinct without remedy. This is what researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) conclude in a recent study published in the journal Ecology Letters. Although, fortunately, it is not his fault. Finding Nemo.


The news

When 'Finding Nemo' ruined the environment or the problem of releasing our pets

was originally published in

Xataka Science

by
Sergio Parra

.