Why can’t the federal government act more like the crazy turtle woman?

On the one hand, you have federal fisheries agencies that have ignored petitions to enforce Endangered Species Act protections for the leatherback turtle. On the other, you have Suzan Lakhan Baptiste, the “crazy turtle woman” of Trinidad, who answered a call for volunteers by patrolling six miles of beach for twenty years, chasing off machete-clad poachers and transforming the beach from a turtle slaughterhouse to a turtle nursery.
Three environmental groups sued the federal government today to force it to act less like its usual self and more like Baptiste. And federal officials have more than the lawsuit to worry about as stories like Baptiste’s come to light.
The lawsuit follows an especially popular run this spring of the annual Great Turtle Race, sponsored by two other groups, Conservation International and National Geographic. Backspacer, a leatherback sponsored by Pearl Jam, won the race of 11 turtles, who were followed during a two-week journey from their foraging waters off of Canada to their nesting grounds in the Carribbean. Another turtle in the race, Wawa Bear, so named because she’s as large as a bear, made history because she completed the trip with a transmitter attached, and was greeted by scientists on the same beach in French Guiana where she has nested since 1993. She laid 95 eggs, each about the size of a billiard ball.
Leatherbacks are famously vulnerable as hatchlings, when they dig themselves out of the sand and head toward the surf– slow moving snacks for birds. But they’re also vulnerable during the long migration through international waters from nesting grounds to foraging waters. They die from indiscriminate fishing methods and forms of pollution, like plastic bags, that resemble the jellyfish they dine upon.
The lawsuit filed today would force the federal government to:
Protect key migratory and foraging habitat for Pacific leatherback sea turtles, which swim from nesting beaches in Indonesia to waters off the California and Oregon coasts, by designating the area as critical habitat.
Designate North Pacific loggerheads, which nest in Japan but forage in Southern California and Baja, as a distinct population, and to strengthen their status from threatened to endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
Designate Western North Atlantic loggerheads, which nest in Florida and Georgia, as a distinct population and strengthen their status from threatened to endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
More on the lawsuit from The Sea Turtle Restoration Project.
Suzan Lakhan Baptiste’s story is available from CNN.
A recap of this year’s Great Turtle Race from Conservation International.