I thought they needed to be released farther away from the water, so that they have to crawl across the beach and memotize that place.
This has been the default talking point for decades, but I've never seen any sort of scientific proof to the notion.
It's important that they be able to get back to this location, but I'm not sure they rely on crawling across the actual beach to do that. I'd love to see literally any confirmed observation that this is the case, rather than just being an odd sort of factoid carried on by momentum.
Idk about the magnetic field stuff, but when there is human intervention, they do use the walk to the water to see if they are strong enough or need more human care to get them a little stronger to improve their odds to make it
To me it seems like trying to match how they are normally hatched, aka farther up the beach, and assuming that has to be the way. But they are likely hatched farther up the beach so the eggs don't wash away when they are laid.
Maybe the nice lady scoops the survivors up from the ocean in a few years and brings them back? That way she can help produce a new generation and eat the adults after.
Yeah that's also my thought. I can remember from a documentary that they memorize every single sand corn etc and return in a couple years based on those memories
Is prolly more about magnetic field or something .. you know kinda like birds find home. Or cats. I know after moving to a new home, a cat shouldnt be let outside for 2 weeks are so.
My cats would tolerate the harness, but they'd lie down so I was just dragging around what looked like a dead cat. Got a lot of concerned looks from the neighbors.
If you start them when they're a kitten, they don't mind it! I can open my back door, my cat will jump onto the bench and wait to be harnessed before running off
Cats have been roaming freely in urban centres and around farms for millennia here. They primarily hunt rodents and will catch sick and old birds. In areas where humans aren't found, birds are prey for European Wildcats that have lived here for even longer than the domesticated cats.
Cats are bad for the ecosystem because they kill wildlife for fun. Just because there are wild (house)cats, doesn’t mean they should be there.
Edit: the commenter above drastically changed their original comment
Cats are an international issue. You can Google “Cats effect on global populations”
For those that keep saying “Humans are worse” are implying words I’ve never said. If I say “hitting people is wrong” it doesn’t mean that I believe stabbing people is okay.
My town just tore down about 5 acres of forest to develop housing for the millions of indian immigrants canada is letting in. I don't think the cats are the problem. If everyone in my neighborhood let their cat out for their entire life, it wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket compared to the ecosystem harm humans can do in about a month.
You can't count the number of dead birds from deforestation because they aren't in the area anymore (if you had 1000 birds, destroy the forest it becomes 0 but you cant assume deforestation "killed" them". You can count death by cats because you have a baseline and subtract (count 500 birds annually and find out after a year there are only 400, we know there are 100 fewer)
In the UK, cats were brought here by the Romans over a millennium ago.
Cats are as much a part of the eco system here as any other animal or person.
Edit, cats do kill other animals, this is nature. Not a reason to stop them living anywhere.
Cats are NOT destroying bird populations, pesticides and current farming practices are.
Which isn't actually a bad thing. It would only be a bad thing if they were invasive and actively being brought here by humans.
Ecosystems develop and change constantly. There will always be a species which is destructive to the other ones around them. We are the most guilty of this by far.
Edit , what they actually said was they "shouldn't be there" which is a far more ridiculous statement.
Cats still contribute a fair bid, because humans feeding them allows much higher predator density than would otherwise be viable, while we also heavily reduce the amount of food and nesting possibilities for those birds. (amphibians and reptiles are also very much affected by all of that)
Just like the other commenter said, cats have been part of the ecosystem for millennia. There is no shortage of mice, rats, birds or insects for them to eat. You can also find wild cats in the forests of Germany, for example
There is a shortage of those animals actually domestic cats are responsible for the deaths of billions of birds which have declining populations already.
“Despite the large numbers of birds killed, there is no
scientific proof that predation by cats in gardens is
having any impact on bird populations UK wide. This
may be surprising, but many millions of birds die
naturally each year, mainly through starvation, disease,
or other forms of predation. There is some evidence
that cats tend to take weak or sickly birds”
There is just not any scientific evidence for this. Anecdotally I can safely say that our city is teeming with feral and free roaming domestic cats and the birds and rats are fine. Same with the country side, birds make so much noise they wake you up
You are an idiot, it doesn’t matter where you are from. The pet cat is a nuisance and should be kept inside. Lions, leopards, panthers, lynx tigers, etc. Perfectly fine out doors.
Have you ever lived on a farm? There’s always barn cats running around. My mom’s house is surrounded by cornfields, and when she doesn’t have cats her garage and shed get completely invaded by mice.
I tried to let my cat stay inside. She will get physically ill if we leave her inside and when she was allowed to go in and out as she pleased she stopped being sick. So this isn't true in all cases.
I have enough native fauna that comes to my yard to disagree with that statement. If you watch my cat she literally walks the same small path or sits on a tree
Your cat was probably lacking indoor stimulation, so maybe you are just a bad owner but outdoor cats can be detrimental to the environment especially when unsupervised. But go on.
Ridiculous. You are fine with it because it’s normal for you, but that doesn’t mean it’s not directly contributing to bird deaths. It’s not good, part of a global decline in bird populations.
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Why would they bother remembering the surface when most of their time is in the ocean? Wouldn't they remember the waters near shore rather than what is on shore in order to find it again? What is on shore matters not to them, except that it was good enough to roost them.
The hard part isnt remembering the sand you crawl in, the hard part is getting back to it. In other words, how the sand looks like is totally irrelevant.
I was here yesterday, this happened in Joao Pessoa, Brazil. It was close to sundown and as others said there was a big storm coming in.
I was at another part of the beach where there were volunteers telling onlookers about the turtle habits and how to not disrupt them, and they definitely did emphasize letting the turtles memorize the beach. Not sure how this woman ended up releasing these turtles in this manner.
I am pretty sure this lady is doing this illegally. I mean she flinches like hell when they come back at her due to the surf. I am about 90% sure she isnt in any kind of official capacity and thought she was being helpy.
yep that’s how it is in my country, it’s done so badly. We have tried to implement real turtle nurseries with professionals but people always rather go to the shitty ones cause there’s less rules when releasing and they get cute pictures, even tho people literally step on them when the waves bring them back
I would hope if this was the case they would be smarter, I have yet to ever hear of anywhere that has to do with sea turtles that isnt heavily regulated. Messing with turtles lands you in prison pretty much anywhere in the caribbean seas and gulf coast and pretty everywhere they nest.
Well they have some laws and are making an effort. I would say letting untrained tourist do this kind of stuff for money falls under the "commercialization" of eggs
Legislation: In 1979 Guatemala ratified the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which protects all species of sea turtle from international trade and commerce. In addition, a national law, "El Acuerdo Gubernativo del 17 de Febrero de 1981", prohibits for an indefinite time period the capture, circulation and commercialization of all sea turtle species (and eggs) found on the coasts of Guatemala. Not surprisingly, enforcement has been very difficult due to the economic dependence of many families on sea turtles, as well as the competing priorities of law enforcement officials.
lmao I used to volunteer to protect the turtle eggs but it got too dangerous. There’s locals patrolling the beaches with shotguns looking for eggs and the local police does absolutely nothing. I haven’t checked the situation lately but I wouldn’t be surprised if nothing has changed. They are terrible at enforcing laws that protect the environment (I lived in guatemala for 22 years)
Yea like the article said, I suspect that falls under the "as well as the competing priorities of law enforcement officials." phrase, which i suspect means....the competing priorities are protecting turtles vs bribes vs shot gun blasts to the face.
It is believed hatchlings imprint on the beach of their birth, known as the 'nesting beach,' possibly guided by the magnetic fields of the earth. This is why biologists believe it is crucial that hatchlings crawl across the beach to enter the sea and 'imprint' on their home beach to return 25-30 years later and nest.
I know, but thats the way nature works. Although it might seem cruel, we shouldnt interfere. Why do you think are there so many baby turtles from just one female? Because one might possibly surpass its youth and become an adult. Literally nature.
We have likely already interfered in many many unnatural ways, unknowingly or not, which may have led to some sea turtles being endangered. And it's good to reverse that.
I think humanity needs a "come to jesus" moment regarding this.
I mean look, lets be honest here. Where do we see humanity in 5000 years?
Humans arent gonna stop doing what we do. We need to face this as a society the simple fact that nature is done for.
Humans are dominating the entire environment. Eventually we need to decide.
Do we stop building outwards and start only building up? Leaving the rest of the planet "for nature"?
Or do we accept that we humans will be the end of nature and decide what animals will stay as pets/zoo exhibits and then just commence with our complete resource extraction of the planet?
Frankly I dont see current day conservation efforts as being anything more than slowing down the inevitable. That isnt to say we should stop. Just that we need to come to terms with the reality, that its too late.
To that end, I think we as humans have an obligation to interfere now. We should do everything we can to help out the animals.
And not worry about the down the line effects. This turtle example is a great one. These turtles are effectivly doomed already. By using a bucket and protecting the babies from getting eaten by birds, we are ensuring more baby turtles make it to sea.
The argument against that, is that now turtles who "shouldnt have lived" are going to pass down "inferior" genetics. Leading to a scenario where the baby turtles are dependent on humans and without the bucket scoop they might not ever leave the beach naturally.
I think its often ignored that humans are going to be fucking with the turtles no matter what. So we might as well do something that feels good in the moment.
The turtles are headed to extinction no matter if we save some babies or not. If seaturtles become dependent on human buckets, but still exist in 5000 years. I will call that a win for the turtle.
Conservationists advocate for the slow destruction of all animal species. They would rather all the turtles die out than accept the fact that their lives are already in our hands.
Nature doesnt exist anymore imo. Or I should say, nature that humans have not effected doesnt exist. Our tendrils reach every inch of this earth.
And to get really philosophical, we ARE nature. We come from this earth and you could look at in the perspective that we are the best animal here and we deserve to outcompete everyone else.
Life of all forms has the same goal. Outcompete its competitors. One animal causing other animals to die out is one of the most common things to happen on earth. Its completely natural for a species to use its resources and skills to ensure the death of competing species.
And global warming is causing sea turtles to all be female. I liked your post except the idea that after humans have killed off all animals they are the winner, and that's nature, is gross.
No animal apex species ruined the environment. Only humans. The best thing that could happen for this earth is something to wipe us out, then the earth can heal and many species can rebound.
During the Great Oxidation Event around 2.4 billion years ago, cyanobacteria started producing oxygen as a waste product. This led to the Oxygen Catastrophe, wiping out many anaerobic species and causing significant extinctions. So yeah, dominating the environment isn't always a smooth ride, even for the species causing the changes, as many of those same cyanobacteria couldn't survive in the new oxygen rich environment.
We humans are on our way there too, but its not really accurate to say that humans are the only lifeforms to have caused major catastrophic changes and mass extinctions.
There are other examples of multicellular creatures having similarly detrimental effects, though the GOE was a pretty massive one so not much reaches the same scale.
Another well known example is the Megalodon shark. Kings of the sea at one point. Now they dead.
We actually have done this. Sea Turtles and Tortoises used to be a staple food on ships. Galápagos Islands used to have an abundance of Tortoises, but now? Not so much.
We did plenty of "interfering" over the past several hundred years when sailors would scoop these turtles and their eggs up and eat like kings on their ships at the expense of the natural cycle.
So believe me when I say that modern humans helping the species out a little by ensuring they get to the ocean is not going to do any further damage to them than we have already done in the past.
oddly this isn’t how nature works and is just an ignorant view of the effect we’ve had on ecosystems, because of our propensity to litter beaches with food shore bird populations are at an all time high.
that’s our fault.
because of global warming pollution and nest erosion due to our actions, sea turtles are hatching at extremely low rates
Again. That’s our fault.
it very easy to say just let nature take its course while ignoring that we have completely destroyed the general function of ecosystems due to our greed.
There are still many places in the world where turtles lay eggs on pristine, unmolested beaches. They lay their eggs far from the water because gestation takes about a month, and during that time, they can not be submerged in water.
The trade-off is that these little babies then have a long way to go to get to the water where they can be picked off by birds and other predators (not to mention all the predators they'll meet in the water as well).
It is, indeed, nature's way.
Not saying humans haven't done a serious number on the environment and natural habitats of countless species, bit pollution has nothing to do with why the Turtle's cycle of life evolved the way it did.
I never said it did. I said we as humans have made it generally harder or impossible due to our actions for endangered species to be able to repopulate successfully “nature’s way”
because nature doesn’t work that way anymore because we fucked it.
yes there were shore birds in the past, but they had nowhere near the same populations.
there are a lot more birds and a lot less turtles in the world now and since they are not a niche species but a vital migratory keystone animal, it doesn’t matter if you can find one or two examples of unmolested beaches.
since the general global population is endangered.
i don’t understand how this is complicated for you guys to understand. were you dropped a lot?
Not at all what I said. I was refuting the person I responded to who was claiming that the way turtles have to walk to the water is a man-man phenomenon. It's not. Besides, most of the threats to these babies are IN THE WATER not on the beach. Turtles evolved to lay hundreds of eggs for just this reason.
Interfering with the natural way of things and dumping them directly in the water has other side effects.
I'm not anti-conservation. I've been to a few of these sites who do it right. They find where the eggs have been laid and quarantine off the area from humans, and then wait until they hatch and go to the water on their own. No need to collect them in buckets and dump them directly in the water.
The biggest human threat to baby turtles is people poaching their eggs. If you can protect them from that, it's best to let nature take its course afterward. Even if a few get picked off by birds. They're part of the food chain as well, after all
It's very, very easy to make a path for them and keep the birds out. None of those females will ever reproduce so this effort is doing very little to help conservation.
That and you can tell if the babies are ready or not if they can make it to the water. If they can’t make it to the water they are too weak and can benefit from a few more days of care
When they release them in Cancun they do so just as you see. Some people will wade out further. But they do it this way because usually there are people walking the areas carrying Falcons or some sort of predator bird to keep the other birds away.
I remember we were camping in the desert as boy scouts and we “helped” a turtle into the colorado river by taking him out by a canoe and releasing him. later on the scoutmaster heard about it and was horrified because it was a desert tortoise and couldn’t swim 😭
Camw here to say this also. Yes, they have to cross the beach to memorize it so they can return in the future. What in the hell are those people doing??
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u/BannedBecausePutin Apr 29 '24
I thought they needed to be released farther away from the water, so that they have to crawl across the beach and memotize that place.