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copyright lisa brunetti, Olive Ridley Sea Turtle, turtle emerging from shell, wordpress photo challenge - beginning
WordPress Photo Challenge theme this week is Beginning, and many images jumped into my mind. Short and sweet, here is one of a very tender moment in Costa Rica:
Several days after its litter mates scuttled to the ocean, this little survivor emerged from its shell after the exhumation of the nest. We watched this olive ridley hatchling awaken and instinctively head to the ocean. Hopefully it’s now thriving and telling its story of rescue! Perhaps it’s saying, “Not all humans are ignoring our plight!”
This little turtle will slowly reach maturity in a dozen or so years, when it will return to its beach of origin to play its role in breeding and keeping its species from becoming extinct. Thanks, all of you who helped the Eastern Hawksbill Turtles win the competition’s grand prize! Ingrid and Alex were thrilled that the turtles’ cheering section kept them in the lead!
For more information about the nesting, hatching, conservation and dangers facing the olive ridley sea turtles, see this post: OLIVE RIDLEY SEA TURTLE.
Happy New Year! Z
Zeebra Designs & Destinations 
very cool Lisa…can’t remember if you have been to Galapagos yet…be curious what the best way is to do it…
good question! no; i’ve not visited yet.. i fear i might not want to leave!
Love the image, I watched a documentary the other day on leather back turtles and how they lay their eggs first time after 25 years. Then they travel all the way to the UK from the west coast of the USA.
But if they don’t make it to the sea they die, or get eaten on the way that’s nature, how she chooses the fittest and we should never interrupt, never pick them up and carry to the sea, Mother nature knows best.
This is were I have a problem with the giant pandas and the breeding program. The bamboo produces seeds before dying, and takes 10 to 20 years to grow back, there is a die back of bamboo and the pandas are loosing 80% of their food, now at the moment no pandas have been found starving but should we interfere on natural selection.
Most of the pandas’ favorite arrow bamboo in a 217,000 square-mile region of Sichuan province is going through a once-in-60-year cycle of flowering and dying before regenerating, if some of the pandas also die then we have to let it happen or we just adding to the problem of to many pandas not enough bamboo.
Interesting dilemma?
hey! thanks for this great comment!
you are right; the arduous trek from the top of the beach to the water is very important to the little turtles’ survival. they gain strength, and they imprint that particular beach on their internal gps settings! i’ve heard tourists tell how they picked up the ‘poor little turtles’ and helped them to the water.. oh, my, there needs to be more education! when the reach the water, the waves often hurl them back on the beach, and they hae to make that crawl again. poor babes, but it helps them with swimming skills as well! when they finally launch and head to deeper waters – wow, what a wonderful moment to witness!
as for the pandas and their lack of bamboo; that’s a huge area! wow, if there’s about to be a void in the panda’s food supply.. ooh, hard question! advance to the head of the class! i’m sure there are tales of what happened sixty or so years ago. if man is responsible vanishing bamboo forests, then yes, i think we should help by replanting. bamboo should be able to be planted by stem cuttings and root/rhizome divisions as well. but if the panda numbers are too large… i wish my internet connections were faster!
have you written about this? maybe we should poll the wordpress readers and get their feedback. when should man intervene, and when should we leave mother nature alone?!
You go girl!
ha! thanks! we need an ‘endings’ theme as well to show the adults returning to the sea! z
Indeed!
I love turtles! Thanks for sharing 🙂
thank YOU for your comment! happy new year!
I voted for them too. Thanks for the prompt. 🙂
thank you so much for helping those highly-endangered hawksbills! z
Wonderful photo and a creative interpretation of the theme.
thanks, pat! there are lots of options for this theme!
That would make a great poll question, Lisa. When should we intervene and when should we let nature run its course? In La Flor, when we went to watch an Olive Ridley arribada, the workers were trying to protect the eggs from poachers. As soon as a turtle would lay her eggs, they would gather them up in bags of sand. Then they would label the date on the bag and place them in groups on the porch of the exhibition hall where a guard would watch them. When they were ready to hatch, they’d carry the bag back to the beach and let the little turtles make their way to the ocean. I would vote for intervention in this case. Cory works in Yosemite National Park, and their philosophy about wild fires is to let them run their course for new growth in the forests. In this case, I agree. Let nature run its course.
many species would not be so endangered if it were not for man; ranchers also kill the magnificent jaguars because they preyed on their chickens or young cattle…
if biologists save the turtles by protecting the eggs from human predators as well as from being smashed by other sea turtles during arribaras, then surely that’s not frowned upon!
i’m so glad that you did your homework and were able to select the best date for witnessing the arribara! lucky you!
Aww, that is so beautiful and a perfect choice for a beginning! They are such wonderful creatures. I’ve adopted a caretta-caretta turtle here in Greece [many years ago when I had the privilege of designing their adoption certificate]. Have a great weekend, my dear Lisa! 🙂
so glad they won, go Turtles!!
Sweet photo, Lisa. I was amazed when I opened your post, as I posted a baby turtle video yesterday, also from Costa Rica. 🙂 http://anotherday2paradise.wordpress.com/2014/01/01/terrence-the-turtle-makes-a-dash-for-the-ocean/
I loved this image and your advice not to take them to the water!
Have a great 2014, Lisa!
Such a cute photo, Lisa, and nice to see you around again. I hope your new year’s off to a great start. The several examples of interfering or not that I’m a bit familiar with are the over-population of deer and the re-introduction of wolves in places like Wyoming. One of the Cleveland suburbs wanted to cull the deer herds, which were growing too large, meaning the deer not only eat everything (in your yard!), they sometimes get hit by or hit cars and can starve and get diseases. But the people acted as if Bambi were to be killed and protested that their children might be shot and so far as I know, nothing was done. (Unless a child can dress up convincingly like a deer and goes under the tree where a sharpshooter who is only looking for deer is, there’s not much chance of getting shot!!) The alternative to culling would be to re-introduce predators, something that can’t happen in the city.
As for wolves, lots of people who don’t live around wolves support the re-introduction while ranchers and farmers who lose livestock to them don’t.
Happy 2014.
janet
I always feel sorry for how man never make it. Happy New Year Lisa.
sometimes it seems as if man is the worst predator on the planet. we could all do more, but some – like you- are playing a positive role! thanks! z
I am crossing my fingers for these, little ones!
Here is wishing this little one many years to grow big, lay eggs and keep the turtle population growing. Isn’t it amazing how babies of any species evoke this sense of wanting to protect it?!
si; they’re so petite and precious! thank goodness they trigger the best intentions of human nature!
A lovely example of beginning. And I am so pleased Alex and Ingrid won the grand prize. Here is some very interesting research on the possible pitfalls of human intervention to help endangered species http://www.comsdev.canterbury.ac.nz/rss/news/?feed=news&articleId=1148
that’s a great story; i have never heard of birds pushing the ‘weaker’ eggs from the nests! thanks so much, and thanks, as well for supporting Alex and Ingrid and the Eastern Pacific Hawksbills!
The internet can be do a power of good when used appropriately 🙂
Love the turtle… nice post… 🙂
Happy New Year. Best wishes to you.
happy new year to you as well! i’ve missed seeing your beautiful photos, and hopefully soon i’ll be out of dinosaur mode w/internet connections! thanks for your continued support!
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Thanks Lisa. Very cool. In terms of man’s influence, on Bald Head Island (off NC) there are people who help the new born turtles get directed toward the sea. Some say they are fooling with nature, yet the sad truth they are remedying man’s intrusion. You see, the lights from the nearby houses and streetlights confuse the turtles and they can head the wrong way (the lights mimics the moonlight on the water, I think). So, the people are there to turn them around. They do not put them in the water, as that would be an intervention.
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Seems like the perfect example for the theme of “beginning”.
Fantastic – Yahoo and Congrats! Love this little guy, symbolizes beginnings perfectly. Happy New Year Lisa!
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Precious!!!! I hope to participate on a walk here this year.
that would be wonderful if you could do that!
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this what new beginnings literally mean. Very nice picture.
thanks! it was a great moment – witnessing life come from an egg thought to be rotten!
Nice shot, Lisa!
thank you! i’ll always treasure the memory of that moment!
Great shot!