|
Turtles passing through the San Bernadino Strait are 85% Females. Those coming in from the Pacific are full with eggs and those going to the Pacific have usually successfully laid their eggs.
Turtles are loners and do not have the communication skills of animals who travel in groups such as Whales and Dolphins.
Therefore it must be long distance underwater hearing that gives them a first warning, thats why they now tend to swim within two narrow (200meter) channels, (the DALUPIRI pass and the CAPUL channel.) They swim very close to the surface and even at times along the surface, no more than a meter deep to avoid ear damage from underwater explosion sound blasts.
Turtles who happen to be at a natural depth of 7 to 20 meters and within a range of two kilometers from a dynamite blast suffer ear damage. Most levels of ear damage are enough to block the navigational senses of the Animal, whereby these unlucky Turtles when reaching the Pacific Ocean, swim in circles, lose their will to live and catch food and finally die.
Female Turtles with eggs attempt to lay on any Island rather than the one of their memory and destination, or they abort and try to regain the Pacific Ocean but in either case remain doomed to a confused and wandering death. Sounds like explosions travel 900 times faster underwater than sound travelling through the air and reaches three times as far! Underwater, a "BOOM!" becomes a piercing arrow-like "CRACK!"
|
|