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Re:Garfield phones beach mystery finally solved by tengbretson on Thursday March 28, 2019 @12:25PM (#19513713)
Should we consider sea snails leaving behind their shells when they die litter?
Re:Garfield phones beach mystery finally solved by perilunar on Thursday March 28, 2019 @10:05PM (#19518539)
Yes, but 'litter' is not necessarily bad. Fallen leaves are 'leaf litter' for example.

The problem is not litter per se, but how it degrades over time. Shells become sand, leaves become soil. Glass becomes sea glass. Plastics become deadly blockages in animals stomachs.

Re:Garfield phones beach mystery finally solved by jschwartzi on Thursday March 28, 2019 @02:19PM (#19515004)
If one beach had a million sea snails leaving shells behind, and the beach were cluttered with them, and it was choking out any other life on the beach, then yeah we would consider that litter.

It's the same as when sea urchins devour whole kelp forests, rendering parts of the sea floor totally barren. One or two urchins aren't a big deal but when they breed without limits they can completely destroy an ocean ecosystem. And so we kill them off when we need to to try to be good stewards of our planet.

Re:Garfield phones beach mystery finally solved by tengbretson on Thursday March 28, 2019 @03:45PM (#19515832)
> If one beach...

The very existence of beaches at all is the result of the overwhelming dead remains of billions of diatoms and crushed shells. I have no doubt there would be a totally different ecosystem if it weren't for their remains.

Re:Garfield phones beach mystery finally solved by andrewflnr on Thursday March 28, 2019 @09:57PM (#19518502)
So if some organisms were naturally excreting a chemical toxic to most life on the planet, with no feedback mechanism to stop them, you'd be against that, right? Don't answer that, it's a trick question. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event