Wise Turtles
Brette Patillo | November 2020
It is the final day of my open water SCUBA certification and my instructor has saved what I consider the worst skills session for last. Starting from the base of a buoy, I am to ascend to the surface without taking air. I am about to begin when my instructor, Evo, stops me, and using the dramatic hand and eye expressions that are required under the sea, directs my attention upward. My breath is taken not by this skills test, but by the sight of an instantly recognizable green sea turtle. Still learning how to control my own buoyancy, Evo keeps a steady hand on my BCD, while I am otherwise completely captivated by the turtle. It swims so slowly and steadily, knowing its place in this world. To finally see this emblematic creature first hand was the beginning of seeing the more-than-human world more clearly.
Flash forward and I’ve started another dive, having just passed the point where you let yourself sink and take in your first slow, fateful breath beneath the surface. There are four green sea turtles, so shallow that I struggle to stay in place against the surf. Their fore flippers come together, trying to steady and eat a strange algae that floats and settles beneath me. Its orange color changes the hue of the water to look and feel trashy, apocalyptic. Despite the algae’s strangeness, I find it beautiful to witness the turtles do their part for the ecosystem. By feeding on algae, they maintain the ebbs and flows of natural cycles such as productivity and nutrients underwater that may otherwise be disrupted by overgrown algae and grasses. Besides algae, they graze on sea grass and jellyfish, though I never had the pleasure of seeing one -- perhaps because jellyfish populations must be managed to preserve the biodiversity of other fish species (Oceana).
I look up to see the rest of my party continuing down the slope of the sea floor and into the reef. I say farewell to the turtle clique and fin away, for the dive has just begun and there are gorgeous French Angelfish, tiny nudibranchs and an octopus to search for. As we glide towards a pier, I think back to a conversation with one of the dive instructors at the shop I’ve spent so much time at. Fenna, a dutch twenty-something year old that strives to know every inhabitant of the Bonaire coral reef, was telling us about a strange algae that was spreading all around the island. An invasive species that is spreading more prolifically due to warmer water temperatures, and an explanation for the strange orange algae. Climate change -- a reminder that diving is not the hobby to take up if my goal is to get away from my studies.
On a different day and dive, I’m exploring every nook and cranny of corals and rocks, finding the whiskers of a shrimp and the ribboning body of an eel. A single clank on an air tank grabs my attention, and after several moments of scouring the floor, I recognize the flippers and wise eyes of a green sea turtle. Its shell is a popular host to epibionts, organisms that will most likely feed some of the local fish (Oceana). Surely it was much older than me, perhaps nearing the end of its lifespan thought to be somewhere around 60 years old (Auster). The turtle looked ancient as it slept there in front of us, trusting that we -- these strange large fish -- wouldn’t disturb him. Why would we? It is by no means our place. Floating away to the next marvel, I consider how the turtle has lived the story of endangerment at the hands of humans.
This story goes back far before I gazed up at the lone sea turtle from the buoy anchor. Farther than when I first saw a green sea turtle at the Atlanta Aquarium, with it’s large body soaring around its tank, acting as a backdrop to an employee’s spiel on how humans were infringing upon its habitat, scooping them up in fisherman bycatch, and causing them to ingest trash (Liu). The turtles I’ve seen here are the lucky ones that made it to the ocean as hatchlings, despite disorienting nighttime light pollution caused by ocean front development. Perhaps they are the ones that are now struggling to hatch male babies due to rising temperatures of water and sand (Liu).
And while I’ve been so lucky to see many turtles in Bonaire, there’s no telling how many there should be here. How many were here before men started hunting them for soup and status in the sixteenth century (Liu)? How many would be here now if men had not started to fragment hatching areas, or if sea level, temperature, and pH had remained untouched?
The story of the green sea turtle is shared by many organisms. It’s the story of the Anthropocene, the geological age of human domination and a culture of greed and consumerism that trickles down into the depths of the oceans. It is how humans discovered wonders of the world like the green sea turtle and labeled their bodies as symbols of status. Plastic, beach front homes, oil: all things that humans have created and now depend on that have destroyed non-human lives. To see the sea turtles, emblems of the biodiversity crisis, is to look squarely at the victims of the Anthropocene.
Yet on the other side of the coin, the Anthropocene has created opportunities within its destruction. There is opportunity to mend the relationship between humans and the non-human world. Seeing green sea turtles in their natural habitat is a special privilege and one that I mustn’t let go to waste. I am alien to their ecosystem, a fact embedded in me as I viewed them only through man made equipment and a thick layer of neoprene. The Anthropocene has shown us the impact of dominance and invasion on the non-human world, but is allowing us a closing window of opportunity to change. I think of the sea turtles I’ve seen, all operating within their space and roles, and I see the most important lesson we can learn from them, which is a respect for nature and its systems. Respect: the most simple, cost effective way to promote change in the world.
Sources
Auster, Peter J., et al. “Identifying Habitat Associations of Sea Turtles within an Area of Offshore Sub-Tropical Reefs (NW Atlantic).” Southeastern Naturalist, vol. 19, no. 3, July 2020, pp. 460–471. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1656/058.019.0302.
Liu, Tzu-Ming. “Unexpected Threat from Conservation to Endangered Species: Reflections from the Front-Line Staff on Sea Turtle Conservation.” Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, vol. 60, no. 11–12, Dec. 2017, pp. 2255–2271. EBSCOhost, doi:http://www-tandfonline-com.proxy006.nclive.org/loi/cjep20.
National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 2007. Green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) 5-year review: summary and evaluation.
Rieser, Alison. The Case of the Green Turtle : An Uncensored History of a Conservation Icon. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012. EBSCOhost,search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=601074&site=eds-live&sc ope=site.
Santos, Katherine, et al. “Climate Change Implications for the Nest Site Selection Process and Subsequent Hatching Success of a Green Turtle Population.” Mitigation & Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, vol. 22, no. 1, Jan. 2017, pp. 121–135.EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s11027-015-9668-6.
Wilson, E., Miller, K., Allison, D., & Magliocca, M. (2010). Oceana. Retrieved 2020, from
https://oceana.org/sites/default/files/reports/Why_Healthy_Oceans_Need_Sea_Turtles.pd f
Brette Patillo | November 2020
It is the final day of my open water SCUBA certification and my instructor has saved what I consider the worst skills session for last. Starting from the base of a buoy, I am to ascend to the surface without taking air. I am about to begin when my instructor, Evo, stops me, and using the dramatic hand and eye expressions that are required under the sea, directs my attention upward. My breath is taken not by this skills test, but by the sight of an instantly recognizable green sea turtle. Still learning how to control my own buoyancy, Evo keeps a steady hand on my BCD, while I am otherwise completely captivated by the turtle. It swims so slowly and steadily, knowing its place in this world. To finally see this emblematic creature first hand was the beginning of seeing the more-than-human world more clearly.
Flash forward and I’ve started another dive, having just passed the point where you let yourself sink and take in your first slow, fateful breath beneath the surface. There are four green sea turtles, so shallow that I struggle to stay in place against the surf. Their fore flippers come together, trying to steady and eat a strange algae that floats and settles beneath me. Its orange color changes the hue of the water to look and feel trashy, apocalyptic. Despite the algae’s strangeness, I find it beautiful to witness the turtles do their part for the ecosystem. By feeding on algae, they maintain the ebbs and flows of natural cycles such as productivity and nutrients underwater that may otherwise be disrupted by overgrown algae and grasses. Besides algae, they graze on sea grass and jellyfish, though I never had the pleasure of seeing one -- perhaps because jellyfish populations must be managed to preserve the biodiversity of other fish species (Oceana).
I look up to see the rest of my party continuing down the slope of the sea floor and into the reef. I say farewell to the turtle clique and fin away, for the dive has just begun and there are gorgeous French Angelfish, tiny nudibranchs and an octopus to search for. As we glide towards a pier, I think back to a conversation with one of the dive instructors at the shop I’ve spent so much time at. Fenna, a dutch twenty-something year old that strives to know every inhabitant of the Bonaire coral reef, was telling us about a strange algae that was spreading all around the island. An invasive species that is spreading more prolifically due to warmer water temperatures, and an explanation for the strange orange algae. Climate change -- a reminder that diving is not the hobby to take up if my goal is to get away from my studies.
On a different day and dive, I’m exploring every nook and cranny of corals and rocks, finding the whiskers of a shrimp and the ribboning body of an eel. A single clank on an air tank grabs my attention, and after several moments of scouring the floor, I recognize the flippers and wise eyes of a green sea turtle. Its shell is a popular host to epibionts, organisms that will most likely feed some of the local fish (Oceana). Surely it was much older than me, perhaps nearing the end of its lifespan thought to be somewhere around 60 years old (Auster). The turtle looked ancient as it slept there in front of us, trusting that we -- these strange large fish -- wouldn’t disturb him. Why would we? It is by no means our place. Floating away to the next marvel, I consider how the turtle has lived the story of endangerment at the hands of humans.
This story goes back far before I gazed up at the lone sea turtle from the buoy anchor. Farther than when I first saw a green sea turtle at the Atlanta Aquarium, with it’s large body soaring around its tank, acting as a backdrop to an employee’s spiel on how humans were infringing upon its habitat, scooping them up in fisherman bycatch, and causing them to ingest trash (Liu). The turtles I’ve seen here are the lucky ones that made it to the ocean as hatchlings, despite disorienting nighttime light pollution caused by ocean front development. Perhaps they are the ones that are now struggling to hatch male babies due to rising temperatures of water and sand (Liu).
And while I’ve been so lucky to see many turtles in Bonaire, there’s no telling how many there should be here. How many were here before men started hunting them for soup and status in the sixteenth century (Liu)? How many would be here now if men had not started to fragment hatching areas, or if sea level, temperature, and pH had remained untouched?
The story of the green sea turtle is shared by many organisms. It’s the story of the Anthropocene, the geological age of human domination and a culture of greed and consumerism that trickles down into the depths of the oceans. It is how humans discovered wonders of the world like the green sea turtle and labeled their bodies as symbols of status. Plastic, beach front homes, oil: all things that humans have created and now depend on that have destroyed non-human lives. To see the sea turtles, emblems of the biodiversity crisis, is to look squarely at the victims of the Anthropocene.
Yet on the other side of the coin, the Anthropocene has created opportunities within its destruction. There is opportunity to mend the relationship between humans and the non-human world. Seeing green sea turtles in their natural habitat is a special privilege and one that I mustn’t let go to waste. I am alien to their ecosystem, a fact embedded in me as I viewed them only through man made equipment and a thick layer of neoprene. The Anthropocene has shown us the impact of dominance and invasion on the non-human world, but is allowing us a closing window of opportunity to change. I think of the sea turtles I’ve seen, all operating within their space and roles, and I see the most important lesson we can learn from them, which is a respect for nature and its systems. Respect: the most simple, cost effective way to promote change in the world.
Sources
Auster, Peter J., et al. “Identifying Habitat Associations of Sea Turtles within an Area of Offshore Sub-Tropical Reefs (NW Atlantic).” Southeastern Naturalist, vol. 19, no. 3, July 2020, pp. 460–471. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1656/058.019.0302.
Liu, Tzu-Ming. “Unexpected Threat from Conservation to Endangered Species: Reflections from the Front-Line Staff on Sea Turtle Conservation.” Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, vol. 60, no. 11–12, Dec. 2017, pp. 2255–2271. EBSCOhost, doi:http://www-tandfonline-com.proxy006.nclive.org/loi/cjep20.
National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 2007. Green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) 5-year review: summary and evaluation.
Rieser, Alison. The Case of the Green Turtle : An Uncensored History of a Conservation Icon. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012. EBSCOhost,search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=601074&site=eds-live&sc ope=site.
Santos, Katherine, et al. “Climate Change Implications for the Nest Site Selection Process and Subsequent Hatching Success of a Green Turtle Population.” Mitigation & Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, vol. 22, no. 1, Jan. 2017, pp. 121–135.EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s11027-015-9668-6.
Wilson, E., Miller, K., Allison, D., & Magliocca, M. (2010). Oceana. Retrieved 2020, from
https://oceana.org/sites/default/files/reports/Why_Healthy_Oceans_Need_Sea_Turtles.pd f