Bubbles in the Bathtub

The following stories from the news tracker this morning caught my attention.

Poachers massacre protected turtles on Mexico beach
Leading The Charge, Australia - http://www.leadingthecharge.com/stories/news-0057472.html
Synopsis: MEXICO CITY - Mexican poachers bludgeoned and chopped some 80 protected Olive Ridley sea turtles to death for their eggs, believed to be an aphrodisiac, and ... 10-Aug-2005

Turtle Gets A First-Class Ride
WCCO, MN - http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_222072226.html
Synopsis: ... require that all healthy loggerhead turtles be released into the wild. Only one in 1,000 sea turtle hatchlings make it to adulthood. 10-Aug-2005

The first is about poachers butchering 80 turtles on a beach in Mexico and leaving all of the remains on the beach. They may have taken some parts, but it wasn't clear from the story. The big question is why did they do it? What was the motivation if they weren't doing it for turtle meat, etc? On a nesting beach you don't need to kill turtles to poach the eggs, which is bad enough, but they certainly did not need to hack up the turtles.

The second story is about a turtle hatchling that was taken back to Minnesota by someone vacationing in Florida. I guess the turtle was discovered and an airline has offered to fly it back to Florida (along with a USFWS escort), FIRST CLASS! And the airline (rightly so) takes the opportunity to generate some good PR for itself.

For some reason these two stories really caught my eye and I think serve to highlight the extreme social and economic differences under which people live around the world. Differences that have a large impact on sea turtle conservation. In one case people are butchering turtles for no apparent reason and in another an airline is flying a single small turtle at great expense to be released in to the wild.