National Marine Week

Contrary to the title, National Marine Week is celebrated for a fortnight from July 24^th to August 8^th (confusing, but we will go with it) so we can all appreciate the magnificent sea life that we have here in the UK.

So, you’re probably thinking two things, WHAT sea life do we have here in the UK, and WHY do we have two weeks to celebrate it? It’s a good job we are about to tell you!

When you think about sea animals you probably think whales, dolphins, seahorses – exotic right, probably only found around the shores of the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Thailand? Wong! We have all of these marvellous animals here in the UK too.

Here are 5 species you might not know actually live around the UK

• Short and Long Snouted Seahorse
• Leatherback Turtle
• Orca
• Bottlenose Dolphins
• Angel Shark

These incredible animals have lived alongside us for many years however, the human race is slowly destroying their habits as a result of global warming and plastic waste. During National Marine Week, people from all over the United Kingdom are encouraged to come out and explore their local shoreline, now we can’t promise you’ll see a Dolphin, but we are pretty certain you’ll still enjoy our beautiful coast.

For the next two weeks, take some time to think about how you could better protect and appreciate marine life. At The Cheeky Panda we do this by ensuring our range of wet wipes contain no microplastics as it is estimated there are over 14 million tons of microplastics in the ocean. Maybe you could participate in a local beach clean up, limit your use of single use plastics, buy eco-friendly non toxic cleaning products (because everything you wash down your sink, toilet and shower ends up in the ocean) and remember if you head to the beach to the summer, take nothing but memories and leave nothing but footprints (okay we know it’s super cheesy but its true!)

We hope you are having a great summer and take some time out this month to appreciate our friends under the sea.

See you soon!