It may be that in order to prevent this kind of crime in the future,
the state may find that it has to ban all turtle taking whatsoever.
After all, in crimes of this sort, it is often that case that the
illegally taken animals are taken by persons who hold licenses to
legally take, either other species, or the same species by different
methods. We need to think about whether that is what we want.
A few years ago a shrimper operating out of Galveston, Texas caught two
Kemp's Ridley sea turtles, members of an endangered species. He caught
the turtles while legally shrimping. Under law, he was obligated to
return the turtles unharmed to the water. Instead, he killed,
butchered, and ate the turtles. Crew members witnessed these actions,
and one crew member, a member of the shrimper's family, was offered
some of the meat to eat himself. He refused, and testified in the
shrimper's trial. The shrimper was found guilty.
He caught millions of shrimp legally, and only violated the law in
killing and eating the two turtles. Two is a lot less than millions.
Was the shrimper justified?
Dave
David L. McNeely, Ph.D., Professor of Biology
Langston University; P.O. Box 1500
Langston, OK 73050; email: dlmcneely-in-lunet.edu
telephone: (405) 466-6025; fax: 405) 466-3307
home page http://www.lunet.edu/mcneely/index.htm
"Where are we going?" "I don't know, are we there yet?"
----- Original Message -----
From: Moontanman-in-aol.com
Date: Wednesday, April 27, 2005 1:33 pm
Subject: Re: NANFA-L-- FW: turtle poachers arrested in Alabama
> In a message dated 4/27/05 1:51:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> dlmcneely-in-lunet.edu writes:
>
>
> > The fact that the folks illegally catching turtles also caught
> turtles
> > legally is irrelevant to the conclusion that they committed a
> crime.
> > If we want to continue the privilege we have of collecting fish
> for
> > aquaria, we need to be on the side of resource protection.
> >
> >
>
> Doesn't it bother you that out of 7000 turtles caught almost all
> were legal?
> Not only that but they were caught by just a few individuals. 340
> turtles?
> Peanuts compared to the legal catch, more turtle than that are
> killed on highways
> in one county. the entire article centered on how terrible the
> trafficking in
> illegal turtles was but it used the numbers of legal turtles to
> make the
> crime sound much worse than it was. the side of resource
> protection would be to
> limit the numbers of turtles a person can catch and use for any
> purpose to
> reasonable levels while enforcing laws that limit those levels not
> making
> exaggerated claims to shock people. I am all for protecting
> turtles but I won't be a
> party to lies and half truths to do so.
>
> Moon
>
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