Green Turtle, night dive, Love's Lodge House Reef, Moalboal, Philippines
Green Turtle, Angel Fish Reef, Norman Island, BVI
Green Turtle, Marsa Abu Dhabab, Egypt
I thought the pictures above might be a good way to illustrate how rare pelagic animals like turtles, sharks, and billfish can't really be considered on national terms but are assets for the world to look after. I've noticed a couple of nations proudly describe turtle hatchlings from their beaches as "exports to the world". I think this is a great attitude and one that should be recognised. Just as important is for those nations that don't have nesting beaches to chip in. How can they do that? By protecting the marine environment. Hundreds of miles from the nearest seawater the extra plastic bags from the supermarket could cost turtles like these their lives years from now if they get into the water. Please recycle, reuse or don't use plastic bags - once they get onto the ocean (which they seem to do with ease), they are easily mistaken for jellyfish by turtles, mola mola and other rare species which eat them and die. Turtles have been arround for milennia but what we do today could have terrible echoes throughout earth's eternity.
2 comments:
Glad to read of this. Will take note of the plastic bag problem - I detest plastic bags anyway, but always try to recycle or reuse them. Another troublesome plastic - the rings that keep sets of bottles or cans together. We've seen them around sea creatures - so sad.
The turtle photos are lovely. Great to see these magnificent animals in such varied colour schemes. Are those small sharks hitching rides on the backs of the lower two?
Thanks Pam - the colour differences are due to water filtering the red light out of sunlight. The top photo taken at night shows the specie's "true" colour - the name green turtle actually refers to the colour of their fat!
the little fish are remora - there is a post on these coming soon.
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