Thursday, February 02, 2006
Stolen sea turtle eggs
ThaisNews
You know, this type of thing happens so often that I doubt y'all would know why I'd put it up here. But, reading this, it occured to me.. seriously, how can these guys survive? What more could we do to them? If a mama sea turtle returns to her natal beach to find that we haven't covered it in lounge chairs or "renourished" it with sand too dark or too rocky to be a suitable substrate, so she can actually lay her eggs.. then what? Then we steal her eggs. I mean, I understand 40 baht ($1 or so) per egg is a lot to poor Thai folks, but.. you just have to feel for the poor freaking turtles. Even if all goes well with the egg-laying process, only one hatchling per 10,000 makes it to adulthood.. so what happens when we keep interfering with the beginning numbers? And then, when the turtle isn't outsmarted by our ignorant seaside lights, makes it past the predatory birds and crabs, it winds up getting caught in a drift net, or hit by a boat propeller.. just all very sad. it's like we're setting up some too-difficult obstacle course for their survival. and they're just wookie cute little turtles - how can they outsmart us?
anyway, to balance out all this doom and gloom, now i give you.. baby sea turtles!
can you get any cuter?
aww :) look at 'em clamberin' for the moon.
oh, they make me happy :) ¶ 4:22 PM
You know, this type of thing happens so often that I doubt y'all would know why I'd put it up here. But, reading this, it occured to me.. seriously, how can these guys survive? What more could we do to them? If a mama sea turtle returns to her natal beach to find that we haven't covered it in lounge chairs or "renourished" it with sand too dark or too rocky to be a suitable substrate, so she can actually lay her eggs.. then what? Then we steal her eggs. I mean, I understand 40 baht ($1 or so) per egg is a lot to poor Thai folks, but.. you just have to feel for the poor freaking turtles. Even if all goes well with the egg-laying process, only one hatchling per 10,000 makes it to adulthood.. so what happens when we keep interfering with the beginning numbers? And then, when the turtle isn't outsmarted by our ignorant seaside lights, makes it past the predatory birds and crabs, it winds up getting caught in a drift net, or hit by a boat propeller.. just all very sad. it's like we're setting up some too-difficult obstacle course for their survival. and they're just wookie cute little turtles - how can they outsmart us?
anyway, to balance out all this doom and gloom, now i give you.. baby sea turtles!
can you get any cuter?
aww :) look at 'em clamberin' for the moon.
oh, they make me happy :) ¶ 4:22 PM
