Help us Design an Exhibit for the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
4,512 VOTES CASTED
The votes are in! We asked you to choose your favorite photo to represent a 'vanishing world’ in the Brian Skerry exhibit opening at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in summer 2013 called Portraits of Planet Ocean. We received more than four thousand votes and the top five contenders will be displayed. Check them out below.
Beluga whales are likely to suffer as a warming climate causes Arctic ice to retreat.
Unlike most coral reefs, those of the Phoenix Islands are protected from pollution and overfishing, which allows them to recover from severe bleaching.
Changes in ocean chemistry destroy the shelled pteropods that this “naked sea butterfly” eats, in turn affecting predators like fish and squid that depend on the sea butterfly for food.
Harp seals depend on seasonal ice during the breeding season. Their populations may suffer as climate change leads to decreasing ice cover.
Hammerhead sharks are endangered by overfishing - often just for their large fins. They are also caught accidentally by fishing gear set out to catch other species.
Warming climate, changing ocean chemistry, and overfishing threaten kelp forests and the many species that depend on them.
Florida manatees lose habitat to humans and are injured or killed in collisions with boats, entrapment in canal locks, and entanglement in fishing gear.
Only two percent of the world’s ocean is protected, but populations of yellowfin surgeonfish and other marine species can recover from overfishing in marine protected areas.
Leatherback turtles are critically endangered - threatened both at sea and on land where females come to lay their eggs.
This small hermit crab lives in the coral reef, which is threatened by changes to the ocean’s temperature and chemistry.
Endangered Atlantic bluefin tuna are caught in the wild and fattened in pens for harvest—usually with unsustainable methods.