sea – Dr. Dot's Blog

June 26, 2010

BP is burning endangered sea turtles alive!

News has just emerged from the Gulf Coast that BP is burning endangered sea turtles alive.

A boat captain who has been leading efforts to rescue the endangered turtles says BP has blocked his crews from entering the areas where the animals are trapped, effectively shutting down the rescue operation.

BP is using "controlled burns" to contain the oil spill. Shrimp boats create a corral of oil by dragging together fire-resistant booms and then lighting the enclosed "burn box" on fire. If turtles are not removed from the area before the fire is lit, they are literally burned alive.

I just signed a petition telling BP to stop burning endangered sea turtles alive. To learn more and take action, click on the link below'

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/bp_endangered_turtles/

June 9, 2010

Please help save the Sea Turtles

Save Sea Turtles - Defenders of Wildlife

Take Action for Sea Turtles

Young turtles like the Kemp’s ridley above are especially imperiled by oil on beaches and in the water. Loggerheads, now listed as threatened, need new protections in the wake of the Gulf offshore oil disaster.

Urge the National Marine Fisheries Service to list loggerhead sea turtles as endangered.

Please help us send 50,000 messages by Monday, June 14th. Take action nowand encourage a friend to do the same.

As a career biologist, former Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Executive Vice President of Defenders of Wildlife, I’m no stranger to animals in distress.

But what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico right now is an unprecedented ecological disaster. It is threatening sea turtles, sperm whales, dolphins, brown pelicans, Atlantic bluefin tuna and scores of other species… along with entire ecosystems.

Today you can help me save one of most visible victims of the Gulf offshore oil disaster: imperiled loggerhead sea turtles.

Urge the Obama administration to improve protections for these amazing seafarers by listing them as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Please take action now.

Today I’m in the Gulf, meeting with senior officials in charge of the oil clean-up and response. Tomorrow I’ll be on one of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s response boats, surveying the damage… and dreading the sight of sea turtles, birds and other wildlife caught in the massive oil slick that’s growing by the day in the Gulf.

I’ll be working with government officials for as long as it takes to protect the wildlife that are innocent victims of BP’s negligence – all the wildlife victims. But today I need your help to save one species in particular: loggerhead sea turtles.

Help ensure loggerheads get the life-saving protections they need. Please send your message to federal officials now.

Loggerhead sea turtles were in trouble before the Gulf oil spill disaster.

The number of female loggerheads nesting on Florida beaches – one of the most important habitats for the species – has declined by 50 percent in the past decade. Scientists and government officials have sounded the alarm about what this could mean for the future of the ancient sea mariners. The National Marine Fisheries Service is now proposing to upgrade protection for loggerheads from threatened to endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

These turtles need our help even more now.

The world’s second-largest loggerhead nesting area is on the beaches of the southeastern United States, the vast majority of which includes Florida’s central Atlantic beaches.

This area is expected to be threatened by the horrific oil slick, depending on how much of the slick gets picked up by the Loop Current — a powerful ocean current that could bring the slick around the southern reaches of the state, through the sensitive coral reef and mangrove areas of the Everglades and the Keys, and then into the Gulf Stream and up the east coast of Florida.

The spill could not have happened at a worse time: loggerheads and other sea turtles — as well as many shorebirds — are in the peak of their nesting seasons right now.

Oil is extremely toxic to loggerheads and other species. Exposure can cause skin loss, poisoning, drowning and death… which is exactly why we need every available tool to help save the lives of individual loggerheads and save this species from extinction.

Today you can do something concrete to help save wildlife impacted by the disaster in the Gulf by helping to save loggerhead sea turtles from extinction. Please take action now.

We’ll do everything we can to save the lives of wildlife impacted by this environmental catastrophe. I hope you will too.

With Gratitude,

Jamie Rappaport Clark, Defenders of Wildlife

Jamie Rappaport Clark
Executive Vice President
Defenders of Wildlife

P.S. Please be sure to follow our blog (http://www.defendersblog.org) and updates on Facebook andTwitter. I’ll be posting from the Gulf all week as we work to protect coastal wildlife from toxic oil.

P.P.S. Please forward this email to at least 3 friends and help us hit our goal of 50,000 messages by next Monday (June 14th).

October 15, 2008

Tell the Bahamas to Stop Killing Sea Turtles

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) lists all seven sea turtle species as 'threatened' or 'endangered.' Five of the seven species inhabit the Bahamas — green, loggerhead, leatherback, hawksbill, and olive ridley sea turtles. Since sea turtles are known to migrate between waters of the U.S. and Bahamas, turtle conservation efforts in the US are hindered by the lack of adequate protections in the Bahamas.

The Bahamas Ministry of Agriculture and Marine Resources has proposed a rule that will enhance sea turtle conservation by prohibiting all harvest, purchase, and sale of sea turtles and turtle products.

We need your help to convince the Bahamas to move forward with this rule to protect sea turtles. Please take action today to help us get better international protection for these ancient mariners.

CLICK HERE to sign

May 28, 2008

Hurry and Help to Protect Pacific Leatherback Sea Turtles

Pacific leatherback sea turtles need your help right now.

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the government agency responsible for fisheries management, is considering allowing hundreds of miles of fishing lines and baited hooks to be set inside the Pacific Leatherback Conservation Area off California and Oregon under what is known as an "Exempted Fishing Permit." The permit would be for the catch of swordfish, but would also allow for the catch of up to five endangered leatherback sea turtles, a short-finned pilot whale and other marine life as well.

Click HERE to sign the petition. If you live outside the US, just make up an address, it's urgent.

February 11, 2008

SOS! Speak Out to Save Sea Lions

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is considering allowing the states of Washington and Oregon to kill California sea lions at the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River in a misguided attempt to protect endangered salmon from being eaten by the sea lions.

NMFS’s proposal would allow Washington and Oregon to capture and lethally inject or shoot as many as 85 sea lions each year. According to the Environmental Assessment (EA) this proposal is the NMFS’s “preferred option.”

This crisis over endangered salmon and hungry sea lions is just one example of what happens when humans degrade an ecosystem. Please tell NMFS to choose a more effective and humane way to protect endangered salmon.

Comments are needed by February 19. So please don’t delay — take action and you may be able to avert this tragedy.

Background

Historically, salmon lived in abundance with sea lions and other predators on the Pacific Coast. That is, in abundance until recent decades, when overfishing, dam construction, logging, modification of rivers and streams, destruction of spawning beds, and other human activities imperiled their populations.

Born Free USA united with API believes that using sea lions as a scapegoat won’t save salmon populations in the long run.

How you can help…

Email, write or fax Garth Griffin…..

(Comments must be received by February 19, 2008!)

Garth Griffin
Protected Resources Division
1201 NE Lloyd Boulevard, suite 1100
Portland, OR 97232
503-230-5441fax
sea.lion.comments@noaa.gov

and write something along the lines of:

"I am appalled at the plans to remove Sea Lions.
Please choose a more effective and humane way to protect endangered salmon!
Please do NOT mess with the delicate balance of our ecosystem"

January 17, 2008

Protect Sea Turtles (sign please)

What could a Pacific leatherback sea turtle possibly have in common with a T-rex? Granted the docile and majestic turtle doesn't connote the same thrilling terror as one of the most fearsome predators of all time, yet the two lived side-by-side some 65 million years ago. In fact the very first sea turtles began to evolve around 110 million years ago.

Click here to support

Thanks 🙂

< I LOVE turtles