300 Dead Mexican Sea Turtles Were Found Floating Off The Coast Of Oaxaca: Sad!
Nat Geo – It’s a sight no one ever wants to see.
On Tuesday, Mexico’s federal agency for environmental protection announced that more than 300 olive ridley sea turtles had died after apparently becoming entangled in a fishing net. The animals were found floating together off the coast of the southern state of Oaxaca, their shells cracked from more than a week of drying in the sun.
The news comes just days after another 113 sea turtles, most of which were also olive ridleys, washed ashore in Mexico’s Chiapas state approximately 100 miles to the east. It’s unclear in this latter case what killed the turtles, but some bore injuries consistent with those caused by hooks and nets.
It’s a sad, sad time to be an olive ridley sea turtle. As a nature enthusiast and somewhat of an amateur expert, it’s always upsetting to read a story about a significant number of the same animal just dying out of the blue. When you throw in the fact that despite only being listed as “vulnerable” by the international organizations that make these decisions, the olive ridley sea turtles living around the coastal waters of southern Mexico are endangered, it just really stinks.
If you take a step back and think about all the animals in the world, and all the animals you’ve ever read about or learned about throughout your life who are no longer with us (RIP guys), turtles come nowhere close to getting the type of appreciation they deserve.
There are so many different types of turtles in the world it’s hard to keep up, and some of them are really fucking cool.
We’ve got scary turtles like the alligator snapping turtle, with jaws like a dinosaur fast and powerful enough to take a hand off.
We’ve got the spiny softshell turtle, rocking a long snout and face that could probably get Dwayne Wade to leave his wife, or at the very least serve as an incredibly discrete and unexpected side piece. I’m talkin’ about #AssEatinSZN. You best believe these guys know a thing or two about swamp ass…
There’s the aptly-named big headed turtle, and there’s not much more to say about these guys other than the fact that, yes, their heads are fucking huge and it’s kinda weird.
I don’t want to get into the difference between tortoises and turtles, so please leave me alone here, but we can’t forget the Galapagos giant tortoise either. These things can live up to 100 years old, with the oldest living captive tortoise clocking in at 170!
More importantly, these things fuck. Actually, no. These things make love.
I could really go on and on but I’ll end it there because that video is hilarious.
The point is, we’ve got so many different cool species of animals on our planet, and a lot of the coolest ones are really struggling. There’s a ton of different reasons for why this is, so I don’t wanna start blindly blaming people (I’m looking at YOU, China), but we can absolutely do better as humans to make sure as many of them stay around as long as possible.
I wish I had more to say about the dead olive ridley sea turtles that the original article was about, but frankly I can’t stop watching that horned up giant tortoise taking his lovely wife to pound town. We all have flaws. No point in fighting it.