rupting the turtles' natural reproductive 

 behavior. The tasks they carry out trans- 

 form them into amateur field biologists: 

 helping a disoriented female, who has 

 just laid eggs, make her way safely back 

 to the water; maintaining the proper 

 level of sand over the nests and relocat- 

 ing nests jeopardized by human traffic, 

 high tides or erosion; protecting 

 hatchlings and taking measures to help 

 them get to the water; and excavating 

 hatched nests to recover trapped live 

 hatchlings and determine the number of 

 successfully hatched eggs. 



Volunteers even control crowds that 

 often gather to observe a hatching. 



A Wish List for Turtles 



Members of the network know that 

 their efforts are important to sea turtle 

 conservation, but Boettcher and other 

 scientists believe that more can be done. 



To make necessary conclusions 

 about all turtle populations, a more fo- 

 cused and coordinated international 

 effort among researchers and govern- 

 ments is needed. Because turtles are 

 global travelers, any progress made here 

 is lost when they journey to other coun- 



tries where they aren't protected. 



Boettcher asserts that looking at the 

 global turtle populations in new ways 

 will be critical. Genetic studies, she 

 says, point to separate populations rather 

 than one large global population. If this 

 is so, then conservationists will need to 

 identify the various groups and design 

 different strategies for each to improve 

 their numbers. 



Another issue to address is the rela- 

 tionship between turtle conservationists 

 and commercial fisheries. "If people 

 who spend time on the water every day 

 reported sightings of stranded turtles in 

 the water and on shorelines, then the 

 data base would be enhanced and re- 

 searchers would be better able to make 

 population predictions," Boettcher says. 



More help on land is important too. 

 One of Boettcher' s plans is to train vol- 

 unteers in the stranding network to per- 

 form necropsies on the beach to rule out 

 causes of death, such as plastic objects 

 in the esophagus. 



Because inshore strandings are 

 underreported, Boettcher would like to 

 recruit more volunteers to monitor in- 

 shore areas. Much of the shoreline is 



accessible only by boat and consists 

 largely of marsh, which makes finding 

 these animals extremely difficult. She 

 says there is little information on the 

 number of turtles that wash up on the 

 sound side of North Carolina's coast. 



And it is possible for turtles to 

 strand deep in these areas. A tagged 

 corpse Boettcher and her colleagues re- 

 leased near Cedar Island was eventually 

 discovered by a duck hunter in the marsh 

 several miles away. It had drifted 

 through shallow bays and creeks before 

 stopping in its final resting place. That it 

 was found was sheer luck, something 

 Boettcher and other members of the 

 stranding network hope to replace with 

 diligent efforts to lower the odds. □ 



You can help researchers in their 

 quest to understand turtle population 

 dynamics by reporting stranded turtles to 

 the local police or nearest aquarium or 

 by calling 1-800/682-2632. If you would 

 like to get involved in the Sea Turtle 

 Stranding and Salvage Network or obtain 

 information on any of the volunteer sea 

 turtle protection projects in North Caro- 

 lina, contact Boettcher at 919/729-1359. 



The World on a Turtle's Back 



Perhaps it is because they seem 

 to us thoughtful, benevolent, wise. 



Perhaps it is because they are so 

 different from us — slow, cold- 

 blooded, tough skinned. 



Perhaps it is because their 

 bloodlines extend millions of years 

 beyond our own, reaching back 

 through time to a world humans 

 never knew. 



Perhaps it is because they are 

 wanderers that venture into the deep 

 and cruise an unforgiving yet fantas- 

 tic watery world we humans can 

 only visit in brief jaunts. 



Perhaps for these reasons we 

 find sea turtles so mysterious. 



In many cultures, the turtle is a 

 symbol of longevity and endurance. 



Ancient Asian, Greek and Ameri- 

 can Indian religions held turtles sacred, 

 building ceremonies and legends 

 around them. 



Native American lore holds that an 

 enormous turtle adrift in a primordial 

 sea carried all the creatures of the 

 world on its back before a world ever 

 was. 



And the ancient Hindus believed 

 the Earth a hemisphere resting on the 

 backs of four elephants who, in turn, 

 rested atop the back of a great tortoise. 

 Though the tortoise is a land creature, 

 its seafaring cousins could probably 

 support the planet just as ably. 



They carry the world on their 

 backs — and have done so for millenia 

 — yet turtles are vulnerable to a soft- 



skinned, shell-less animal with a 

 taste for the sea. Turtles' stony cara- 

 paces and leathery skins are no 

 match for strange contraptions, plas- 

 tics and poisons. Their slow pace 

 deadly in the path of swift boats and 

 cruel people. Their ages-old habits of 

 perpetuation thwarted by artificial 

 lights and intrusive structures. 



This vulnerability leaves turtles 

 little room for survival — without 

 intervention by the very creature in 

 their way. 



Perhaps it is because of this 

 vulnerability and our own part in it 

 that we should shoulder the world 

 for a while and give the turtles a 

 chance to rest and recover. □ 



Daun Daemon 



22 MARCH/APRIL 1997 



