...Think of Dr. Ziccardi, a professor at the University of California at Davis’ School of Veterinary Medicine, as the Bay Area’s wildlife rescuer on the scene in Louisiana. Last week, he flew, as he put it in a blog post, “from the Left Coast to the Gulf Coast,” to assist in the Deepwater Horizon spill response from a command post in Houma, La....
It could be argued that people are acting in irrational manners due to the extreme nature of the circumstance, but, doing so is taking the law and the 'final outcome' into their own hands and completely "W"rong to do.
The scientists that track these turtles would know the route they would be taking. This time of year, especially, that 'vital habitat' would be illegal to fish in and would be protected.
The USA has 'set aside' the special areas on its coast line to protect such species, it is rich with fish all year round. It would be a fisherman's 'joy ride' to simply take this 'opportunity' to fish in replenished seascapes.
Those would be the protected areas that were set up during the Clinton Administration. I am not saying there aren't chemicals of many kinds throughout the water column, but, if the dead turtles aren't 'tainted' with anything that would kill them then they were destroyed either as 'by catch' or viciously for the 'demented joy' of it.
With that a possibility, all the enforcement personnel anywhere in the USA that 'work' in these areas and throughout the fisheries should be taking extra precaution and vigilance to a potential 'upticks' to these occurrences. Exclude NO species. These bozos will kill protected Bottlenose Dolphins as well. They don't care, they love the anger and hate.
I would even say, 'give effected fishermen' special access to the protected areas, but, that would be tragic. They are going to be subsidized anyway. If their subsidies and/or lawsuits are too slow, then they should have made available to them 0% loans with an agreement that payments from any monies coming through the petroleum industry will first satisfy the indebtedness.
The reason one cannot fish these areas is because the creatures themselves have literally 'set up' housekeeping within the 'peace of protection.' To disturb that would require years to decades to have them return. The marine life will leave and become vulnerable again. Fishermen in protected areas (sorry for the analogy) are like 'bush drivers' in the Jungle sending a tiger to the hunters.OR, in this case, 'the poachers.'
