Turtles, Continued

There are seven turtle species that inhabit the seven seas, the males of which almost never come to land, and the females of which only come onto beaches from the sea to deposit their eggs. The largest is the green turtle, the smallest and rarest, the Kemp’s ridley. The five in-between species are the loggerhead, leatherback, hawksbill, flatback and a different ridley.

Six of the species are known to parts of coastal United States.

The green turtle travels all of the oceans and swims the longest. It is the only herbivorous one. But all of them are currently having population problems and need the support of new conservation laws by nations that touch on oceans to protect these species, some of which were present when some dinosaur species were still extant.

What happened is an all too familiar story. As the world population rapidly expanded more and more, sea turtle eggs were removed from beach nests, and despite the fact that female turtles came ashore to deposit their eggs several times a year, the female population plummeted. It is only within century 2000 that eggs on beaches have become protected from plundering to the degree that several sea turtle populations have stabilized.

With respect to the those who say, “Why go to so much trouble for turtles that only visit our beaches to lay eggs?” One can only say, “Why do we hire police to protect us and our homes?” Isn’t it the same? We are a modern society that protects all of our society’s assets, including our society’s plants and animals.

We find we are hard pressed to protect our coast’s 300-plus right whale species, which we lose to collisions with ocean liners and other nearly unavoidable events. These seven species of oceanic turtles live as long as we do. They beg to not only be protected, but to be treated with respect, in the way, say, we respect and protect our redwood trees and pileated woodpeckers. By the way, none of these seven saltwater placental mammals attack or feed on humans. We need to show them the same degree of respect.

If it weren’t for those noble few protecting their nests, we surely would lose them altogether. We have yet to figure out, that once a species is lost, how do we go about getting it back?