MIC’S MEMOS
You have to wonder why beach driving is allowed on a beach where a highly endangered animal has been coming to lay its eggs for millions of years, says
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to take my wife and son on a trip through the Isimangaliso Wetland Conservation Area in northern KZN. The Ironman 4x4 in-house film crew were tasked with making a number of travel videos featuring this region. I had never visited the area before, so we decided to turn it into a short family holiday before the new school year started. A highlight of the trip would be hooking up with a couple of people who are involved in the conservation of marine turtles and hopefully get to see them breeding along this stretch of coast.
I have long been fascinated by sea turtles and I have always been aware of the fact that they have the odds massively stacked against them in the game of survival. My wife and son are great lovers of nature and young Michael is a huge fan of Sir David Attenborough. It is certainly one of life’s greatest experiences for me to see my son’s reaction to the first time he sees something pretty awesome in nature. I am often taken back to many moons ago when I myself saw what he is seeing for the first time.
WE WERE FORTUNATE to see a lone turtle emerge from the ocean during full moon, drag herself up the beach to the vegetation line, dig a deep hole and then proceed to lay her eggs. We were also very lucky to catch the very last hatchling from a nest and observe him making his journey down to the water. Our guide was most informative and brought home some startling facts to me. The survival rate of turtles is difficult to determine but is thought to be one in 3 500 or 0,03%. For every 3 500 hatchlings born, only one makes it to adulthood.
It takes a female turtle between 25 to 30 years to reach maturity when she is able to produce eggs. After being at sea for 25 odd years, she will travel back to the same beach where she was born to lay her eggs. While theories abound how they do this, it is believed that they can ‘smell’ the chemical compound of their birth beach and navigate back to it from around the globe after two and a half decades.
Turtles have been around for more than 100 million years. In less than half a century, man has managed to push marine turtles to the brink of extinction.
They form a vital link in their habitat. With plummeting turtle numbers, jellyfish swarms are causing havoc over vast regions of the ocean.
Our plastic bags that end up in the ocean look like jellyfish to the turtles with dire consequences. Mineral mining on our beaches alters the chemical signature of the breeding beaches and prevents the turtles from returning to their birthplace to reproduce.
AT THE AGE OF 10, young Michael is becoming increasingly aware of our impact on nature. As a young pre-teen lad, he refuses to use plastic straws and he gives me a very hard time when I forget my re-usable shopping bags at home.
Michael makes a couple of comments while we’re walking on the beach at Sodwana Bay observing the turtles. He notices that there were more bits of plastic on the beach than shells. He also notices that the turtle hatchling was having a very hard time reaching the sea due to all the 4x4 vehicle tracks in the soft beach sand. He asks why we needed plastic at all and if there isn’t something else we could use that would disappear over time and not kill the turtles.
His most profound question, however, is why beach driving is allowed on a beach where a highly endangered animal has been coming to lay its eggs for millions of years. Intrigued by our conversation I say that I don’t know the answer to that and ask him why he thinks that’s the case. Without hesitation, he states that people don’t know, they don’t care and that they are idiots.
The only stretch of beach that allows beach driving in the country happens to be a favourite breeding ground for turtles. I find it hard to disagree with my young son Michael.