Sorry about the gi-normous pix above, but I'm screwin around on how to present last weeks death row in a scrapbook type of format.
You all might take note that the last photo of the belly-up turtle has three eggs showin that I picked out of the carcass. I could see dozens more inside. One amazing thing to take note of is just how much meat is on that beach. Several tons at a minimum. There is so much that the scavengers get to pick and choose depending on what's best in their opinion. First choice from what we have been seeing is the California Sea Lions, thin skinned with gobs of blubber and easily accessible meat. Second would be the dolphins, again thin skin, gobs of blubber and meat. Thirdly would be the Humpback Whale, that boy has probably fed those beachcombers for many months now. The sea turtles are a challenge though, with the bony carapace, plastron and head and only heavily scaled legs and flippers to pick at. The turtle carcasses must last a lot longer due to the difficulty of getting inside them.
And Scottie, I don't believe the panga tangle net shrimpers are responsible either. Those nets have floats on them and are are light weight and only hang down a few feet. I think that a larger turtle could still get to the surface to breathe. I do think the purse seiners and trawlers do most of the killing. There is a way to stop this, how about cameras documenting every haul so that someone can actually see the carnage? And the sixteen to one ratio that you mentioned is way off.
I had the "pleasure" to volunteer to crew on one of the trawlers owned by the Balboas family that used to own the restaurant in the harbor. At that time I was also renting dock space from them. Aside from being just about the most boring two or three days in my life each time that I went, the excitement when those huge bags got dumped on the deck was something else. Day or night the most important thing was to sort out the shrimp, if there even were any. The beggar birds swooped in like a horde, Brown Pelicans, Brown Boobies, Blue Footed Boobies, Sooty Shearwaters and gulls of a half dozen species. They were oblivious to the deck hands, with only food on their minds. The deck hands would grab those birds by the head and sling em overboard while more were coming in.
The first thing you saw in the pile was stingrays, lots of them, they were first over the side. Next, baskets were brought up so sort out the "good" fish, snappers, triggers and small groupers were usually saved. Then there was the "junk "fish, toadfish, small rays, lizardfish, and eels. "Over the side with em". Then there were the crusteacens, Blue Crabs, Box Crabs huge Hermit Crabs and Giant Mantis Shrimp. "Over the side with em" Then there were the mollosks, Clams, Swimming Scallops and Giant Penn Shells. "Over the side with em". Then there was the "Crapola", old tires, balled up rope, cinder blocks, rocks, soft corals, sea fans and more. This stuff was set aside to dump in areas where they couldn't scour the bottom, mostly rock reef areas. Finally you could see the shrimp and there were never very many of them.
The PP commercial shrimping was almost wiped out by a disease they called "white spot" a few years back. This was introduced around 1998 to 2000 when the shrimp farms were built North of El Golfo. Those guys brought live wild caught shrimp flown to Yuma all the way from Venezuela to use to supply the eggs that were raised into larva that were put into the huge square ponds that you can still see from outer space! A few extra high tides later and guess what? The diseased Venezuelan shrimp escaped into the Sea of Cortez and almost wiped out the commercial native species in barely two years.
Anyways, I gotta go fire up the barbie as Mrs. Willy is just Jones'n for a half dozen of those giant Gulf Blues that we got last weekend at El Jaguey.
Later,
JJ
