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 News from Around Banderas Bay | August 2007 
Saving Sea Turtles from a Silent Death
 Ariel Dueñas - PVNN
| | Wild Travellers Director Ariel Dueñas takes a 5 am rescue call. | 
| | In Mismaloya, a female Lepydochelys Olivacea is found dead with her almost empty shell lying upside down in the sand. | 
| | Biologist Israel llamas (UdG) and turtle activist Alfredo Bauche P.(W.T.) patrolling Izatan beach. | 
| | Slaughter grounds on Mismaloya Beach. |
The operation ends in a few minutes, silent and efficiently, within the tight darkness of the slaughter grounds called "Los Peladeros." As it frequently happens, the murderer does not get caught, but leaves behind the evidence of his crime.
Soon after, the protectors of the sea turtle camps arrive on the agitated virgin beaches of Jalisco. Before their eyes a female Lepydochelys Olivacea lies without movement, her almost empty shell upside down in the sand.
Standing in front of this horrible spectacle of guts and blood you have to wonder, are these really cold blooded animals? Because here in a midnight mystified by the milky way and by the roaring of the raging sea, you can still feel a strange heat...
It might be the dry season of this torrid coast line, or maybe an echo of the life, almost like a ghost, from the primitive species that just died. Or that kind of brutal passion that reflects the rational and methodical task of tearing out from the Quelonios those attributes that are so valued on the illegal skins market.
Reptiles are humans, a moralist might say... and this is just another unsymmetrical death in the war for survival of the four out of eight species found in the State of Jalisco. Just another confrontation on this Playon, which is nearly 69 kms long.
And though there are three turtle camps with a dozen nest rescuers patrolling this stretch of coastline on five quad bikes, they cannot defeat the dozens of poachers who make two pesos for every egg they steal and between $200 to $400 pesos for the epidermis of these legendary swimmers.
The "Peladeros" in between La Cruz de Loreto and Majahuas make an authentic cemetery. The female that was just killed is lying in a pool of her own blood and organs, her eggs still in the bag. There was no time for the killer to take them, his fear of being caught in the act by the protectors who were nearby outweighing his greed, thereby reducing his margin of income.
Hundreds of older turtle carcasses seem to give a cold welcome to those who walk these holy grounds to relieve the remorse of seeing the slaughter of what a priest might call these "beings without soul."
A black turtle (Chelonia Agassizzi) was murdered here just a few days ago, said activists Alfredo Bauche (Wild Travellers staff) and Biologist Jorge Ivan (GAPEA A.C.) as they stood in front of yet another discarded shell.
For those of you who might ask why turtles are still being killed when it is common knowledge that they are on the brink of extinction, the answer is simple: MONEY. "In one night you can make enough to post bail," they say in laughing tone, "you can make $200 USD a night - every night." |
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