I like turtles.  I’ve liked them as long as I can remember.  When I was a kid I liked them so much that I begged my parents to let me keep a parade of red-eared sliders, all of whom died in various tragedies.  Eventually I learned that if I really liked turtles, I shouldn’t keep them as pets.

I’ve seen some sad turtles recently.  A few months ago, I spotted a sea turtle trapped in a small tank of a restaurant kitchen, presumably waiting to be eaten.

A local from Sanniangwan recently found one at a seafood market in Beihai and bought it for 900 yuan (about $140USD).

This one should be a juvenile green sea turtle.  The green sea turtle, a  globally endangered species, has a distinctive feature:  a single pair of prefrontal scales, the scales on top of the head between the eyes.  Other sea turtle species have two pairs of these scales.

In China, the laws and regulations for protecting these creatures are in place, but for a variety of reasons (the most important being corruption and lack of accountability to the public), enforcement is nearly non-existent.  We are working to convince the government agencies charged with enforcement to devote more resources to the regulation of fishing practices along the Guangxi coast.   Barring drastic fundamental changes, this is an uphill battle that will last for decades.

“Why does Rice play Texas?…We choose to…do [these] thing[s] not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

-John F. Kennedy, Rice University, Sept. 12, 1962.

turtle head poking out