Turtellini

You know writing this post made me hungry, but this is not about the Italian dish called tortellini.  Instead this is about how we impact sea turtles and how they impact us.

Let’s start out with some of the many uses we have for Sea Turtles.  This includes things such as medicine, food, and for tourism; tourism is a little tricky, so we will get to that last.

So, for medicine people think that the shells and even the meat have some magical property to it that will cure various diseases, but this is not the case.  They are just another organism that is eaten.

The preparation of sea turtles as food varies; you can cut the meat out and cook that, you can cook the shell in a soup, or as my father always says, “they come in their own bowl” and you can cook them in the shell.

Now its time for the tricky part, for tourism people enjoy seeing them dead and alive.  In various markets around the world people can get a dead sea turtle as a souvenir  Personally, all these uses are disgusting, because it kills an already struggling creature.

of their trip.

On the other hand, the other use by tourism is through dives, trips and look outs.  All of these allow people to see how beautiful they are in the wild and then it is possible to see what they do to aid in the environment.

Now the impacts that turtles have on the environment are huge, each turtle, doing their own specific part to their surroundings.  To start off the green turtle likes to graze on sea grass beds, and in doing so allows the grass to grow faster and have a higher nutrient content.  Hawkbill sea turtles help more on the reef, eating things such as sponges, which allows for more corals to colonize and grow. 

In addition to these individual habitats, Sea turtle help to enrich the environment, by supplying and recycling nutrients.  This occurs both on land and in the ocean, due to their spawning habits.  On top of all of these all the species of sea turtles are special and beautiful in their own way and it would be a shame to ever lose them from this wonderful planet that we call home. 

If they can inspire me to make a difference in this world, then they can do the same for others.

http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/reports/Why_Healthy_Oceans_Need_Sea_Turtles.pdf

https://www.keywestaquarium.com/florida-keys-sea-turtles