The Not So Wonderful Life of Zeke The Green Sea Turtle By: Erica Cisneros

The Not So Wonderful Life of Zeke

The Green Sea Turtle

By: Erica Cisneros

Hello,

My name is Zeke and I am a Pacific Green Sea Turtle. I’m here to tell you a little bit about the lives of my friends and I. You may wonder where we get our name “green” well it’s not because I’m green, I know shocking. It’s actually because the color of our fat is green, yup you read right its green pretty cool huh? Our shells are actually a blend of different colors like brown, dark olive, gray, or black. We get to be quiet big too; I am a full grown male around 4ft long weighting 440Lbs. As adults our diets mostly consist of algae and sea grasses, but our baby hatchlings don’t really eat many veggies they love to eat that meat from insects to worms. Our population likes to stay in shallow water until breeding season comes around, then we travel long distances to find that special someone we will mate with. When nesting season comes around the girls travel back to the beaches from which they were born to lay their eggs in the middle of the night, they will do this every 3-4 years or so.                       

You may have seen us all around the world but we prefer to stay in tropical and subtropical waters. Because we migrate long distances for mating season and nesting season it is hard to pinpoint exact areas that we are located. Just to give you an idea of how hard it is, we have nesting sites in over 80 different countries. Over the years our numbers have gotten smaller and smaller, I notice less and less of my friends around breeding season, and not as many girls are surfacing to lay their eggs. I actually heard that in 2004 there was a Green Turtle assessment that showed a 48-65% decline in our numbers. As of 1978 we were listed as Threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. As for my friends in Florida and the Pacific coast of Mexico, well they have it real tough they are listed as endangered. Meaning well they are a lot closer to being extinct then we are, hopefully we can all recover soon.

Life has been really hard for all of us; we can’t seem to catch a break anywhere, not in the ocean or on land. We face all types of threats that vary in severity from place to place. My buddies in Hawaii   are fighting a pretty bad disease called Fibropapillomas that is wiping many of them out. Over Guam there are huge threats to the females and our eggs, people are always taking them for food or other stuff. In the islands of American Samoa people are just taking over the entire area and they are making it really difficult for any of us to live there. We are no safer in the water a lot of us are drowning due to these huge fishing nets that are impossible to avoid. It’s getting harder and harder for us to survive and we need help

The great thing about this is that the humans are trying new things to help save us from extinction. Law enforcement is being increased to help prevent the direct take of our eggs and females nesting; they are even keeping feral animals away. More research is being done to help find ways to save us from entanglement and reduce the amount of debris in the ocean. They are investigating this debilitating tumorous disease to hopefully find a cure for us soon. There are many more things on this recovery plan that will help ensure our protection for years to come until our numbers are strong again, hopefully this will be enough.

Sources:

·         https://www.nwf.org/Wildlife/Wildlife-Library/Amphibians-Reptiles-and-Fish/Sea-Turtles/Green-Sea-Turtle.aspx

·         http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/turtles/green.htm

·         http://ecos.fws.gov/docs/recovery_plan/981201e.pdf

·        Images courtesy of Google Images