Longshoremen and Turtles —
Strange Bedfellows?
By Dave
Chaddock.
A few years ago, at the time of the WTO protests here in Seattle, a
newspaper commentator remarked that it was very ironic to see longshoremen
marching together with people in turtle suits. Why was it thought to be
ironic? Because, as the columnist argued, if a turtle actually appeared on the
docks, it would not have a chance of surviving.
Having two pet turtles at
home, I was so angered by this canard that I wrote a protest letter to the
newspaper. What sort of inhuman uncaring monsters were we supposed to be?
Of course a turtle never does appear down here, but consider how we treat the
gulls. Whenever we find a chassis with a nest on it, we set it aside. And
who does not recall Mark Favro, whose strad was always surrounded by a flock of
birds, including one with a bad leg that he fed for over six years
.
Yes, we are militant and unyielding in the defense of our rights.
But it is not us who are posing a threat to nature and the environment. It
is those who are putting all their emphasis on tax cuts for the rich and on war
mongering. This leaves precious little for health care, education, and all our
other vital human needs, not the least of which is the opportunity to commune
with nature.
The fate of the turtle is
symptomatic of a
worldwide ecological crisis that demands our attention. When Columbus named two
islands Las Tortugas he had a good reason for doing so. The entire
surrounding sea "seemed to be full of little rocks" which turned out
to be turtle backs. Soon the Caymans would be providing staple fare for
ships' crews. Helpless when turned onto their backs, nesting turtles would
be dragged down to the water and transferred to the holds of ships. There
they could last for weeks without any care, as fresh meat, ready to be carved
up. Green turtle soup then became a delicacy in England, with 13,000
turtles (almost entirely females) carried off each year until the Cayman rookery
collapsed.
Turtles were not the only
victims in these earlier times. While the bison were being wiped out on the
Great Plains, the Japanese were systematically exterminating the albatross
population on nearby islands. Since incubating birds would never abandon
their nests even when threatened, one man could easily kill 150 of them in a
single day by clubbing them on the head. Live chicks would be dipped in
boiling water and then stripped of their down.
More recent times have not been
free of similar perils. As described by Carl Safina in his new book, VOYAGE
OF THE TURTLE, the Pacific Leatherback turtle has catastrophically crashed from
a population of 90,000 adult females in 1980 to fewer than 5,000 today. That
is a 95% decline in a little over
two decades. Off the coast of Trinidad alone, gill nets accidentally tangle
500-600 turtles a year, and only some are released alive. Another hazard is
plastic. Since Leatherbacks dine on jellyfish, they often ingest look-alike
plastic sacks. At one research center, 70% of Leatherbacks found dead and
autopsied had plastic bags blocking their digestive tracts.
Since there are fewer turtles eating jellyfish, there are more jellyfish.
And since jellyfish eat fish larvae, fewer turtles mean fewer fish.
Mining sediments and sewage draining into the sea have apparently led to
dead zones and to large numbers of diseased turtles with tumors. Bottom
trawling in some areas has devastated the seabed, just as mountaintop removal
and clear-cutting have had similar effects above sea-level. In tropical
seas, dynamite and cyanide are the principal fishing tools in many areas, as
coral reefs are wiped out. Shrimp trawlers typically kill 15 pounds of
bycatch for every pound of shrimp they get. Shrimp-raising ponds destroy
mangrove forests and spread disease. And of course overfishing is taking its
toll. New England lobsters used to live 50-75 years and it was not unusual to
catch one that weighed 30 pounds. But now 90% of them are caught within a year
of reaching their legal minimum size at about age six, and they are lucky if
they get to weigh two pounds.
Here in the Pacific Northwest
we have seen our magnificent salmon runs reduced to almost nothing. The
picture certainly looks bleak, and yet there is hope. On the Kamchatka
Peninsula, which until recently was a closed military zone, almost without
roads, there are six million acres with nine entire river systems, where all six
species of Pacific salmon remain abundant, perhaps five million returning each
year. Though poaching for caviar is a problem, the Russian government
intends to protect this area from development. (NYT, 10-15) And it
is argued in SONG FOR THE BLUE OCEAN, another excellent book by Safina, that it
is possible to have our dams and salmon too. Not the hatchery salmon that
lack stream smarts, not young salmon that are barged around the dams, but real
salmon that swim downstream and make a natural transition from fresh to salt
water. How would this be possible? From mid-April to mid-June, when the
majority of fish would be in motion, you would restore the rivers to their
natural state by drawing down the reservoirs. Ports in the dams would be
opened to let the fish go through. For about ten weeks there would be
reduced electric power and barges could not travel. It would cost about $50
million a year. But since the cost to the fishing industry (from lack of
salmon) may be in the range of $300 million a year, this would actually be a
savings.
Of course we cannot expect a government that is in debt up to its
eyeballs to fork out $50 million for a worthy cause. This is a government that
is so wedded to military spending that it has to drum up war after war, from
Vietnam to Nicaragua to Iraq, a government that is a slave to the
military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about. In the same
period that the
Leatherback has suffered a 95% decline, since about 1980, US military research
has increased 260%, until it consumes more than $75 billion a year! (NYT, 10-30) And
the end result of military spending is the creation of such things as expensive
bombs that destroy themselves and make increasing numbers of people mad at us,
which requires us to make even more bombs. It is not exactly a productive
investment! And military vehicles and planes require vast quantities of
fuel.
Thus President Bush feels he has to approve gas drilling on Padre Island, which
incidentally is the main US nesting beach for the Kemp's Ridley sea turtle. For
my part I am proud to take the side of the turtle against Mr. Bush, and I hope
that the alliance of longshoremen and turtles will only grow stronger!
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