When turtles die

From David Troeger

There is a Malayalam story in which the protagonist tells another character, “You know, the female turtles are the most unfortunate creatures on earth. They are denied the delights of motherhood. They can’t lay their eggs in the ocean where they live most of their lives. They rush to the beach to lay the eggs and rush back to save themselves from men. The eggs hatch under nature’s care. The mother won’t ever see her little ones. She can’t love them, can’t fondle them, won’t even see them. They are the saddest mothers among all creatures.”

There are seven different species of sea turtles now. They are all endangered species and three of them are critically so. All of them are born on some beach where their mothers lay the eggs only to depart instantly in horror of the human species for whom turtle soup is a delicacy, turtle shells become decorative items, and turtle eggs are “absolutely delicious” low calorie meals.

Nature’s temperature hatches the turtle’s eggs. There’s something very curiously interesting about this hatching too. If the eggs are hatched at a temperature below 29 degree Celsius, the hatchlings will be male. Between 29 and 34 degrees, they will be female. And above 34, the eggs won’t hatch. Climate change has driven the temperatures well above 34 in many beaches so that turtles are being driven to near-extinction.

 Another curious fact about turtles is that the hatchlings move to the waters on their own. They have no mothers or adults to guide them. They discover the water and travel kilometres in it. They are highly migratory creatures that live mostly in the ocean waters. They come ashore rarely – just to bask or to lay eggs. The female turtles return to the same beach where they were born in order to lay eggs, years after their birth. Aren’t they amazing creatures?

These amazing and cute creatures are likely to become extinct because of human beings. These creatures which appeared on the earth 2 billion years before mankind did will be driven to their end by mankind! Climate change is one of the chief causes.

Plastic is another. Some time back when a dead turtle was subjected to autopsy, nearly 2 kg of plastic was found in its intestines. Once a turtle was found dead with one end of a plastic rope jutting out of its mouth and the other end out of its anus. We, yes you and I, have dumped 5.25 trillion macro and micro pieces of plastic in the oceans. They weigh 269,000 tons. Every day around 8 million pieces of plastic make their way into the oceans. Isn’t it time to think of abandoning plastic as far as possible? For the sake of the turtles, fishes, and other creatures in those waters?

The protagonist of the Malayalam story mentioned at the beginning of this post tells the other character, “I’m leaving this world of people. I’m going to live on an island which is just as big as a football ground but is uninhabited by people and where turtles come to lay eggs. Like Suheli. Like Mu Ko And Thong. Like many others without names and without maps. I will live on one of them. When the climate change heats up the earth and the island sinks under water, I will sink too.”

Mankind will sink. After killing almost everything else with their foul deeds. But there’s still time to check our deeds, to correct ourselves.

PS. This post is part of Blogchatter’s CauseAChatter.