"Sea turtles have been around about a hundred and fifty million years. They have a definite place in the ecosystem, and they were doing just fine until people began slaughtering them as bycatch in nets and harvesting them and their eggs for profit. The commercial net fishermen don't know about ecology and the balance of nature. They believe the ocean is their own resource to deplete for their own profit, right down to the very last fish. They see the turtles as an economic problem they want to eliminate, just like the jewfish problem. Without the small protection sea turtles gain from the Environmental Protection Act, the fisherman will slaughter the sea turtles untill they are only a sad memory to those of us who care. "

"So today, a senator named Slade Gorton is trying to help fisherman slaughter sea turtles if they get in the way of the " lawful" commercial harvest of fish. Lets forget for a second that for years it has been "lawful" to empty all the baitfish and mullet out of coastal breeding grounds, so that today you have empty water where 15 years ago you had massive schools of fish. Lets forget that snapper and grouper have been overfished so shamelessly that today our reefs are covered with grunts and trash fish, where before it was with big schools of snapper and grouper. All of this was done "lawfully". Maybe Americans who have never seen the gentleness and beauty of a sea turtle don't know why they should take the time to try and stop their slaughter. I say, even if you can't have compassion for the sea turtle, surely you can see the direction many of our legislators are heading in. The commercial fishing industry has paid supported certain politicians so that they can continue to profit until they take the last fish. Don't believe for a second it can be self regulated by the commercial fishing industry. This is like the fox promising he won't steal chickens from the hen house.

We, as Americans, need to put our foot down and stop legislating our way to a dead ocean. I ask you to start now by helping the turtles.

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