Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog

The inspiration for this post comes from a couple newspaper articles that appeared in the Courier-Journal a few years ago.  Seems somebody found a dead, but genuine octopus at the Falls of the Ohio!  Since our fair area is over a thousand miles away from the ocean and its salty water this was quite a discovery.   How did it get here?  On occassion one hears about other unexpected sea life (I’m thinking of sharks) that have been recorded swimming up rivers.  The octopus, however, is another matter.  In the follow up article to this story the truth of the situation was learned.  A young film enthusiast was making his own monster movie and had procured a dead octopus to use as a prop.  When he was finished with it, he left it to the elements where it was discovered by a passer-by.  Mystery solved.

In honor of that discovery I thought I would present a few of my own finds from the Falls that carry the sea life theme along.  I regularly collect and photograph in situ the objects the Ohio River washes up at the park.  Here are six plastic toys I have come across.  You have already seen my octopus.  The yellow fish in the above image I think represents a marlin?

Over the years I have found two seahorses.  This green one was discovered just recently, while the orange seahorse is from three years ago.  The fact that millions of years ago this place was a thriving marine ecosystem isn’t lost on me.  Potentially, this will happen again perhaps several times before the earth itself becomes history.

I have come across a couple of crustaceans as well!  The plastic lobster is a toy sand mold and appeared brightly against the driftwood.

One of my personal favorites is the realistic red crab I found and photographed around sunset.  It is somewhat by chance that these things would appear here and that I would find them.  Makes me wonder about the other plastic sea life that I know I missed and continued on a journey to the ocean.  After several years of drifting with the currents, these items would find a new home in the ever growing plastic dead spots that are now a fact of today’s oceans.