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May 30, 2009

"Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind." --Albert Schweitzer

A Maternity Ward -- For Turtles

With its white sand and clear, blue water, Trinidad's Matura Beach looks like a postcard. It's a far cry from its recent past, when leatherback sea turtle carcasses littered the ground and kept tourists away. Saddened and frustrated, Suzan Lakhan Baptiste launched a crusade to help end the slaughter of the gentle giants. Today, she and her group are succeeding: What was once a turtle graveyard is now a maternity ward -- one of the largest leatherback nesting colonies in the world. It hasn't been an easy fight for Baptiste or the turtles. For 100 million years, the creatures have traveled the world's oceans, outliving the dinosaurs. Over the last 30 years, they have become critically endangered worldwide because of fishing.