SEBASTIAN SUN (Florida) 02 November 08 Turtle Soup? It's not what's for dinner anymore — or is it (Ed Killer)
Living in Florida — especially on the Treasure Coast — means one is in frequent contact with Mother Nature.
It might be something as fleeting as the glimpse of a whitetail deer bounding across the street at dusk.
Or perhaps a flock of young jakes (Osceola turkeys) bolting from a clearing into the tree line along a rural road.
Once in a while it could be the chilling sight of a coral snake under the chaise on the lanai.
At any rate, even our urban areas are wilder than most developed parts of the country.
Even in suburban Jensen Beach my boys encounter local wildlife on a daily basis. Sandhill cranes, owls, lizards, spiders, frogs, fish, crabs, marsh rabbits, mice, armadillos, raccoons, possums and this week's adventure — a pair of box turtles small enough to fit at the same time into the palm of my 3-year-old's hand.
Usually an encounter lasts a few minutes or a few hours before the creature flees, wanders off under its own power or is released. The encounter always results in a fantastic hands-on learning experience for the kids and for me, too.
But when these two tiny turtles came into our presence from the nearby marsh, it reminded me of a recent story that made me feel equal parts naive and angry.
According to news reports by some of the state's largest newspapers, freshwater turtles are being harvested from the wild en masse and shipped in bulk to Asian markets to be sold for food purposes.
Apparently, few Asian diners have read the ingredients on pesticide labels for products used on the state's 1,250-plus golf courses of which many lakes and ponds are on or near.
Really, does anyone know if copious amounts of copper sulfate makes cooter turtle meat better or worse? I know it probably makes the meat blue in color.
Since the reports earlier this year that 3,000 pounds of freshwater turtles are shipped weekly from Tampa International Airport, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, environmentalists and commercial harvesters have been in a three-way debate over what exactly is the status of what until now has been a largely ignored resource.
Conventional wisdom suggests that if the shipping documents are true, then there is a heap of turtle heading to the Orient.
The FWC argues that 90 percent of that is actually documented, farm-raised turtle meat and that the resource is in good hands.
Still, on Oct. 23, the FWC elected to hammer out more clearly defined rules when it comes to the turtle take.
FWC Commission chairman Rodney Barreto even released an opinion letter decrying media misinformation and backing FWC law enforcement and biologists' observations that the situation is actually under control.
However, an Oct. 16 bust on the St. Johns River nabbed two Orlando men with five miles worth of trot lines, including 5,000 hooks baited with raw chicken.
The men, Nghiep Tran, 46, and Tieng Tran, 53, were cited with harvesting turtles without a commercial license and more.
I'm no rocket scientist, but what I've learned in my sheltered life is that where's there's a lightly regulated resource, there's a capitalist that will figure out how to exploit it.
Even if it lives in a shell.
Turtle Soup? It's not what's for dinner anymore — or is it