World Aquatic Animal Day Date in the current year: April 3, 2024

The term “aquatic animals” refers to animals that live in water for most or all of their lifetime. Some aquatic animals, like fish and most mollusks, are water breathing, but air-breathing animals which cannot survive on land or far from water are also classified as aquatic or semiaquatic animals. Aquatic animals that live in or near saltwater are also known as marine animals.

Examples of aquatic and semiaquatic animals include the aforementioned fish and mollusks, corals and other marine invertebrates, marine reptiles (sea turtles, saltwater crocodiles, marine iguanas, sea snakes), aquatic birds, and some mammals (dolphins, whales, sea cows, seals, otters, capybaras, platypuses, etc.). Insects that have aquatic larvae (dragonflies, mayflies, mosquitoes) are also considered aquatic animals because their larval stage lasts longer than the adult stage.

Aquatic animals play an important role in ecosystems, as well as in the daily lives of humans. Unfortunately, their habitats and populations are impacted by overfishing and destructive fishing, climate change, pollution, and other factors that put aquatic animals at risk.

World Aquatic Animal Day was inaugurated in 2020 to raise awareness about the role of aquatic animals in our societies and ecosystems, the challenges and threats they face, and the ways to reduce our impact on aquatic animals and their habitats.

The inaugural World Aquatic Animal Day was dedicated to aquaculture — the farming of freshwater and saltwater aquatic organisms, which has both its pros and cons as far as aquatic animal populations and coastal ecosystems are concerned. The next year’s theme was the impact of human activities on aquatic animals.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the first two World Aquatic Animal Day celebrations were held online. However, it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing; on the contrary, this format helped make the campaign truly global right off the bat. For example, the inaugural campaign was supported by animal welfare organizations from Australia, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Zimbabwe.

How can you support World Aquatic Animal Day? There are plenty of ways to get involved. You can learn more about the plight of aquatic animals and share your knowledge with others, reach out to your local animal welfare organizations and support them, organize a World Aquatic Animal Day event of your own, spread the word about the campaign on social media, etc.

If you really want to help aquatic animals, you shouldn’t limit yourself to doing it one day a year. One of the best ways to reduce their plight without much effort is to limit your use of plastics, since microplastic pollution is one of the biggest threats for the habitats of aquatic animals.