The Hawksbill turtle is in some parts of the world a fairly common sighting for scuba divers. In the Maldives, it is probably the most common sea turtle, followed by the green sea turtle. But don’t get it wrong, E. imbricata is critically endangered, and here you can read why.
Though I have so many photos and videos, it took me many years to write about the Hawksbill turtle. Some animals seem to hide their story better than others. The name imbricata means overlapping, because the scutes overlap like roof tiles. Eretmochelys is ‘the tortoise with paddle-feet’. The order Testudines counts 360 species in 14 families. Sea turtles are so called hidden-neck turtles like most turtles. The group of side-necked turtles is much smaller. Have you ever thought about the mechanisms of neck retraction in turtles?!
Usually I read about an animal for weeks before a story is done. Every time I start another search, something new comes up, or often enough I cannot find the answers I am looking for. Turtles are popular creatures amongst divers and snorkelers, and thus tons of information are available. That made it a bit difficult for me to find a lesser known story.
Story number one is an unpopular, and maybe even forgotten one. It’s another common name confusion, this time only in German language. There’s something that bothered me for a long while. My pictures show the Hawksbill turtle Eretmochelys imbricata. It is one of only seven species of sea turtles. Its German name is Karettschildkröte. Karett coming from an indigenous Caribbean language, meaning turtle, and also tortoise shell. So far so good, it is unfortunately true that the shell of hawksbill turtles is used for decorative items all over the world. Strangely the exact name in German is Echte Karettschildkröte. Real carette turtle. That means there’s a fake one also. Falsche Karettschildkröte.
Now the weird one. The fake carette turtle, the loggerhead turtle, carries the Latein name Caretta caretta. How is this not the real one?
As you can see in the list below, the false carette turtle was even described and named Caretta caretta 8 years before the true carette turtle. The fact that I’m looking for the German common names doesn’t help, because most papers are either in Latein or English.
Loggerhead 1758
Green 1758
Leatherback 1761
Hawksbill 1766
Olive Ridley 1829
Flatback 1880
Kemps Ridley 1880
It took me a while to come to the assumption that the German common names have to do with the tortoiseshell industry. Fortunately the Cites Convention on International Trade banned the trade with tortoiseshell in 1973.
And since the material is easy to identify, tortoiseshell luckily became a rarity nowadays. That made it also difficult for me to find detailed information about the craftsmanship around it. I can live with that. What I found is that the real carette turtle, the hawksbill, was the main source, and “delivered” the best quality tortoiseshell, with a thickness of 1.5 to 5mm.
The loggerhead, or false carette, has a thinner layer of only 1 to 2mm. Least attractive was the green sea turtle, with even thinner tortoiseshell.
Without a proper confirmation, I think the hawksbill material was the real deal, because it was the best quality material.
There are estimates saying that 1.4 million hawksbill turtles left their lives in the second half of the 20th century alone. Another devistating number? Japan alone might be responsible for the death of 9 million hawksbills in the past 180 years. I don’t think the eggs taken as food are counted in here. You don’t need much fantasy to imagine how cruel the process of tortoiseshell yielding was!
Another story and reason why sea turtles are endangered is also concerning, but at least it comes with a little potential for a smile.
Religion is not a common topic on picmybug, so I am kind of enjoying this.
Pope Gregory I. declared in 590 AD that during fasting no warm blooded animals should be eaten. Before, and probably since the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, no fish and no dairy was allowed also. During lent the 40 days period where Jesus suffered in the desert is worshiped.
Pope Julius III eased the rules for lent further almost 1000 years later. Still, the consumption of meat on Fridays is to be avoided.
In 1966 Pope Paul VI. reduced the number of fasting days to a total of 2, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
So what was on the table? Not warm blooded, and not meat, that is fish. Of course hard working people needed a source for protein, and during the fasting periods fish was one of a few options. And for Christians the fish has a special place, in early years they used the symbol Ichthys (fish), a sign used by early Christians spelling out the Greek words for ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior’ (lesous Chi Thita Yios Sigma).
Story number 2 is about inventiveness when you’re hungry.
When you can eat fish but not meat, you start to reconsider what a fish is. The lives of aquatic animals like beavers, alligators, even puffins, and guess what, sea turtles, ended during the fasting periods. Even nowadays every year thousands of sea turtles are illegally consumed during lent, for example in Mexico and the United States of America. Hawksbill turtles can be poisonous, but it depends on their diet.
In 2002, a Mexican conservation group named WILDCOAST wrote a letter to pope John Paul II, asking him to declare sea turtles meat and not fish! There were more attempts in 2007, a letter writing campaign to Pope Benedict XVI, and again in 2013. The answer is yet to come.
A quote from the letter:
‘If people refrained from eating turtles during the Lenten season, it would help stabilize dwindling sea turtle populations around the world. We humbly beseech you to clarify that sea turtles are not appropriate food during Lent. Perhaps you can offer a prayer for the sea turtles – a few words from Your Holiness would inform the entire Catholic community.’
The whole story here:
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