You are in the current BP disaster ROV, number 37.
If you'd like to go back to see what we've said in days past, visit the current mothership.
This is where you want to be for discussion, worrying, tearing up, and caring for each other. It's also where you're welcome to be angry and scream and curse and cry and rant at the criminal negligence and greed that have brought us all together. Most importantly, though, it's where we can learn from those kossaks among us (I'll not name names for abject fear of leaving one of you out, but you know who you are.) who bring the light of knowledge - sometimes with heat, sometimes without it - and teach us about what's happening beneath our Gulf of Mexico.
It bears repeating: please don't rec this diary. Rec the mothership, here, and volunteer for service there as well.
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I was more than a little maudlin yesterday. Bless dear Mr. khowell, because he's a patient soul. Bless all of you, too, because you help him not have to be quite so patient. Today, we're going to play a little game. I've been thinking of all you kossaks with kids, or who work with kids, and I thought I'd share one of my favorite games from Sea Camp.
For more than a decade, I attended, and then volunteered, and then worked as a paid employee at Project Marine Discovery Sea Camp at the JL Scott Aquarium and Education Center in Biloxi, Mississippi. Of the zillions of activities we did (from beach combing and beach cleaning, to habitat restoration and cataloging and tagging of turtles, one of the ones that sticks with me as a great group game was "Turtle Hurdles". First, an introduction to, and a little information about the turtle life cycle. My old friend Elvis was a 3 year old male. He looked a little like this guy.
On turtle days, Elvis and I spent hours together, as we walked around the upstairs lab describing his "scutes," the "plate-like" parts of his "plastron," or bottom shell. We'd point out his flippers, his claws, his little beak-like mouth, and his soft, vulnerable joints. Sea turtles do not like to be on their bellies, so I'd carry Elvis, plastron out, with my arm under his bottom supporting him and leaning him back into my chest. We'd walk around the room, often eyeball to eyeball, as I pointed out what bits were which to the students. Elvis was a little smaller than Mr. Turtle above, but not by much.
Now. Kemp's Ridley (Lepidochelys kempii) sea turtles are born on the beach, in nests dug by Momma turtles with their back fins. Momma turtles are big, weighing in at about 100 lbs when they're mature, and their shells are heavy on land. They're not meant to be on their bellies on the ground, because that weight makes it very hard to breathe.
Kemp's Ridleys are born in soft little eggs that look like ping pong balls, but a little bigger. If they're lucky and not disturbed by predators or people (some of whom think turtle eggs are an arousal enhancer) a turtle will hatch and eventually make its way toward the surf. Kemp's Ridleys are confused by bright lights. (If you've ever lived or vacationed in a turtle habitat, you know when it's that time by the tracks in the sand and the rules against flash-lit walks on the beaches.)
In the ocean, baby Kemp's Ridleys have to eat. They often eat their favorite treats - jellyfish. But plastic shopping bags bear a striking resemblance to the bell and tentacles of fresh, yummy jellies, and an ingested plastic bag means a slow and painful death to a Kemp's Ridley, young or old. They often swim through - or into - six ring packs. If they get stuck, their carapace will become figure-8 shaped, until their internal organs are so constricted by the plastic ring that they die. Turtles are, obviously, susceptible to oil in water. They must come up for air and can be poisoned by chemicals just like humans. Finally, turtles are prone to death in shrimp nets not equipped with Turtle Excluder Devices, or TEDS. TEDS are, essentially, doors that open to the turtles when they swim up near the top of the net. They're able to get out easily, and though many shrimpers say TEDS reduce their catch, the point is debatable.
95% of mature Kemp's Ridleys nest in one place. Tamaulipas, Mexico, and their range is throughout the western and northern Gulf of Mexico, up the eastern seaboard to Maine, then the whole thing starts over again. This complex, beautiful process is the basis for a pretty fun - and educational - game that will get the kids in your life outside, playing, and thinking about their actions.
This is the setup
In a field, there's a line. On one side of the line is the beach, where turtles are born. On the other side is the ocean, where they live, mate, and eventually, die. In the ocean, there are two safe areas, or sea grass beds, where you can hide until you're four years old and too big.
Players are split into two groups: turtles and limiters.
Turtles: Each player counts out 50 beans to place in his or her bag. Beans represent turtles. Each bag of beans represents the turtles that hatch from a single nest.
Limiters: Turtles have several natural predators on land and sea, and there are hundreds of things people do to make their lives shorter, more nasty, and more brutish than they already are. Your limiters are split up accordingly. Each limiter gets a card (in our case, usually, an around-the-neck badge) saying what they are. Limiters also get a bag; theirs is empty. Each time a limiter tags a turtle, the turtle has to give up 10 beans. Limiters can't: 1) tag the same turtle twice; 2) tag a turtle while he or she is handing out beans to another limiter; 3)get less than four steps away from a turtle that's paying up to another limiter.
Limiters on land: from animals - raccoons, ghost crabs, dogs, and foxes; and from people - dune buggies, human egg collectors, and habitat depletion
Limiters at sea: from animals - sharks, killer whales; and from people - litter, pollution, entanglement in fishing and shrimping gear, and illegal hunting
Back to our game: Baby turtles get in groups of five or so, and they have to spin around in circles ten times before they can try to leave the "nest," or their group (this is to represent the disorientation of the lights). They must accrue ten years (represented by five poker chips) in the open sea before they can reproduce. Since most females are mature at 7-15 years, this is a pretty good midpoint. Players pick up one poker chip at a year zone and then run to the other one while dodging predators and limiters to pick up another poker chip. Each chip represents two years of survival. After collecting five chips, Momma turtles return to the top of the beach, dodging land-based predators and limiters like condos, and build nests.
Turtles that lose all their beans are dead. They have to go back to the beach and become a "condominium," where they stand shoulder to shoulder. Once turtles who have survived their ten years in the ocean return to the beach to nest find their route to the sand blocked by the condominiums, they die, too.
This is a fun game for kids in the 8-10 range. When they're older, they need more challenges, like greatly reducing the number of beans in a bag (eggs in a clutch) or increasing the number or type of predators in the open "sea". It's important to emphasize that while human factors do limit turtles' survival rate, there can also be too many turtles and not enough food. We played a variation where all animals (turtles, predators, etc) had two bags. Popcorn was sprinkled throughout the playing area. Babies had to get 5 pieces of popcorn in order to progress to the ocean, then they had to get 8 pieces every year until they were 10. Too many turtles show, in a simplified version, the problems of over-population.
Giving credit where due:
Jogging my memory on the rules of Turtle Hurdles - Dr. Sharon Walker, Director of Education at the Institute of Marine Mammal Sciences, was kind enough to spend the afternoon on the phone with me, reminiscing about Turtle Hurdles, PMD-Sea Camp, and district, state, and international science fairs long past. This site seemed to match our memories best. If you're fortunate enough to live on the (MS) coast, I can highly recommend her summer camp. If you live on the coast and can't afford the camp for your kids, I happen to know that at least one alumna routinely provides a scholarship for a student. I'm sure there are others as well. If you're looking for a place to send your money in the wake of this disaster, these people are doing yeoman's work: turtle and dolphin necropsies, cleanup, and education. Make a donation here.
This site has really cool pictures of all sorts of turtles - Kemp's and Olive Ridleys, Greens, Leatherbacks, and Hawk's Bills, too.
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Video Feeds BP Video Feed CNN multi camera view All BP videos WKRG - Mobile/Pensacola Today's Liveblog Diaries Daily Kos Oilpocolypse ROV #28: Hopefully Cutting the Riser - tomtech Links, Courtesy of several kossaks
- h/t dov12348's recommended links
- The Oil Drum
- Oil & Gas Journal
- Offshore Magazine
- Petroleum News
- You Oil and Gas News
- World Oil
- Administration response to spill.
- Donate to SkyTruth here. SkyTruth helps environmental NGOs use remote sensing (pictures taken from space) and digital mapping to improve their scientific credibility, conservation decisionmaking, communications and public outreach.
- Images of the Oilpacalypse, from Tomtech.
- Visit the Oil Spill Crisis Map to see where oil, mousse, tar balls, and eau de crude have been reported on the Gulf coast.
- The BP Deepwater Horizon Unified Command official website. Wherein you can read latest post warning of employment scams associated with the event and much more from the folks handling this.
- Timeline of response here.
- Timeline of the Event from April 20th being maintained by blogroots.
- Department of Energy BP Deepwater Horizon Spill site updates.
- Bit Tooth Energy blog (technical discussions) by the famed Heading Out, well known key poster on The Oil Drum blog site.
- Department of Interior BP Deepwater Horizon Response site provides updates, reports, data, links to pictures, etc.
- Rigzone for specific disaster news and news about the offshore industry, in general.
- BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Quantitative Data - from whitis
Important news from the holiday weekend