These Turtle walks have become a huge rage now, at least in coastal cities. During the nesting period of Oliver Ridley’s, the group goes on a late-night hunt and takes the turtle eggs from the beach to avoid poaching.
I was prompted to think about the attention these exercises get and the people who spend time chasing these eggs. Let me clarify first. I am not a cynic. I am also not against these kinds of exercises. But the hype that surrounds this and the coverage it gets makes me think louder about.
Firstly, an average turtle lives for 160 years plus and they lay some 50 plus eggs every time. Just imagine for a moment about what will happen if all these eggs hatch and each goes on to live for 160 plus years. The world will be full of turtles and we would be sitting on them practically, if at all they don’t get power and start ruling the mammals.
Jokes apart, I feel there is an ecological balance that is maintained by nature and it is not a wise thing to meddle with it. But, these environmentalists have surely done their study and they know that they wont meddle with the balance. So, what bugs me really?!
It is this that bugs me. We all are too consumed about the welfare of turtles and we do late-night vigil and walks to protect them. Definitely a noble thought & act. But
1. Are we all not aware about female infanticide in this country?
2. Don’t we know that there are plenty of orphanages in this country with children waiting to be adopted?
3. Do we know that, about 90% of the children in these homes are girls who are discarded by their own parents just because they are in the wrong gender according to them, or because they cant afford to have them.
4. Are we aware that the chances of them getting adopted reduces drastically as they grow older and there is a race against time always?
5. Are we aware that children get trafficked for sex-trade?
Now, are these turtle walks really that important & noble? If there was a condition that all the eggs that are saved should be taken home by them and hatched and maintained will they do this? It is all about convenience. As long as you have an interesting moonlight walk in a beach, find some eggs and hand it over to the some agency, its cool. Anything beyond is a challenge. We all wear blinkers and look only at what we want to look. And feel so very great about the mundane achievements we make as individuals and society.
Everything needs hype & attention. The really well meaning people who run foster homes also have to resort to support from celebrities to get some dough to keep the hearth burning and for every successful and self-sufficient center, there are 100 that are not. No one cares about them, because we are busy saving turtles. We will go down in the History of Evolution, as the only species that was more concerned about the others than its own. I don’t think that the Dinosaurs were worried about the mammals, millions of year ago.
Maybe we will wake up only if there is a threat of extinction. That too, the whole species, not females alone!!
I was prompted to think about the attention these exercises get and the people who spend time chasing these eggs. Let me clarify first. I am not a cynic. I am also not against these kinds of exercises. But the hype that surrounds this and the coverage it gets makes me think louder about.
Firstly, an average turtle lives for 160 years plus and they lay some 50 plus eggs every time. Just imagine for a moment about what will happen if all these eggs hatch and each goes on to live for 160 plus years. The world will be full of turtles and we would be sitting on them practically, if at all they don’t get power and start ruling the mammals.
Jokes apart, I feel there is an ecological balance that is maintained by nature and it is not a wise thing to meddle with it. But, these environmentalists have surely done their study and they know that they wont meddle with the balance. So, what bugs me really?!
It is this that bugs me. We all are too consumed about the welfare of turtles and we do late-night vigil and walks to protect them. Definitely a noble thought & act. But
1. Are we all not aware about female infanticide in this country?
2. Don’t we know that there are plenty of orphanages in this country with children waiting to be adopted?
3. Do we know that, about 90% of the children in these homes are girls who are discarded by their own parents just because they are in the wrong gender according to them, or because they cant afford to have them.
4. Are we aware that the chances of them getting adopted reduces drastically as they grow older and there is a race against time always?
5. Are we aware that children get trafficked for sex-trade?
Now, are these turtle walks really that important & noble? If there was a condition that all the eggs that are saved should be taken home by them and hatched and maintained will they do this? It is all about convenience. As long as you have an interesting moonlight walk in a beach, find some eggs and hand it over to the some agency, its cool. Anything beyond is a challenge. We all wear blinkers and look only at what we want to look. And feel so very great about the mundane achievements we make as individuals and society.
Everything needs hype & attention. The really well meaning people who run foster homes also have to resort to support from celebrities to get some dough to keep the hearth burning and for every successful and self-sufficient center, there are 100 that are not. No one cares about them, because we are busy saving turtles. We will go down in the History of Evolution, as the only species that was more concerned about the others than its own. I don’t think that the Dinosaurs were worried about the mammals, millions of year ago.
Maybe we will wake up only if there is a threat of extinction. That too, the whole species, not females alone!!
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