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The Environmental Spectator
Dark Weddings and Purposeful Mice
Life is good for the turtles of central Florida.
PALM BEACH, Fla. — “Red Navels and Hot Nuts” read a big handwritten sign by a roadside stand out in the middle of nowhere on a lonely stretch of a two-lane road in central Florida.
“Gator Jerkies and Boiled Peanuts” read the next sign.
The only other signs of life were some “No Trespassing” and “Ron Paul” posters nailed to trees.
Central Florida with its sagebrush and wide, empty landscapes is the kind of lonesome place that gives you the willies, reminiscent of Joan Didion’s description of a place she called “a senseless killing neighborhood.”
We rode for hours and saw nothing but burned-out sugar cane fields and a maximum security prison, the kind of foreboding structure that housed Ted Bundy.
No wonder Walt Disney was inspired by the empty (and cheap) land to create his escapist fantasy world —- Cinderella’s Castle, a Magic Kingdom, and midnight fireworks.
A Marxist literature professor I knew in the 1970s believed that the whole Disney empire was a capitalist plot to undermine the revolutionary consciousness of the poor. Lovable Mickey Mouse was created, she argued, to make the downtrodden more accepting of rats in their dilapidated surroundings.
Not exactly pioneering in terms of radical thought, her Mickey analysis was actually just a variation of Marx’s portrayal of religion as a giant pacifier, myths created by the oppressor class to keep the subjugated ones focused on the hope of pie-in-the-sky in the hereafter, lest they revolt to improve their condition here on earth.
Down the beach at the Harbour Beach Marriot in Fort Lauderdale, we saw an elegant outdoor wedding where the bridal party and the hundred or so guests were eating in the dark on a patio by the water. I asked our waiter why they were dining with all the lights turned off, their only light coming from some small candles on the tables, most of which were flickering and repeatedly blowing out in the sea breeze.
“We have to turn off all outside lights from March through October because light confuses the turtles during breeding season,” he explained. “The newborns are fooled into thinking the outdoor lights are moonlight. Even the TV screens in the bar have to be turned around so they can’t be seen from the beach. The save-the-turtles people sit on the beaches sometimes until four a.m. and report us if they see any lights.”
The long brownout begins when female turtles make their way onto the beach to dig holes in the sand with their back flippers, laying about 100 eggs each, and then covering them over with sand.
It then takes about 60 days before the hatchlings break out of their shells and head for the ocean at night, attracted by the moonlight on the water.
Going on for eons, this whole design of nature goes off track if bar TVs or lit-up weddings cause the hatchlings to head in the wrong direction.
The darkened beach towns are following the national turtle guidelines issued by the Environmental Protection Agency. What the coastal hospital industry needs is a turtle that can tell the difference between a TV and the moon.
Our trip ended as it began — putting our car on the longest passenger train in the world, Amtrak’s AutoTrain.
The roundtrip price: $334.80 for two rail tickets, $360 for the car, and $830 for a “large” bedroom (still small, with bunk beds — me on top, squeezed like Charlie the Tuna).
About the Author
Ralph R. Reiland is the B. Kenneth Simon professor of free enterprise and an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (11) | Leave a comment
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aldona beall| 3.24.11 @ 6:41AM
Next time you visit Florida, fly, rent a car, and visit the west coast, south of Tampa, preferably Anna Maria Island, and you can watch the Pirates!
scythe| 3.24.11 @ 7:40AM
And your point is?
potkas7| 3.24.11 @ 7:47AM
One evening in 1988 I was having dinner with a Russian at the Hilton Hotel in Addis Ababa when the subject of Disney World came into the conversation. My companion was dead set against it.
"But look at the joy it's brought to people." I said.
"That's the whole point," replied my companion. "Something like that shouldn't belong to a private person. The government should be doing that."
That's when I knew Russia was doomed.
KyMouse| 3.24.11 @ 7:53AM
By all means, let's protect the baby turtles. Never mind that around 3,000 baby Americans are killed by abortion on any given day.
Why not protect them, too?
Le Cracquere| 3.24.11 @ 10:20AM
The "ad pejus" fallacy rears its head: A is worse than B; therefore, B can never be legitimately addressed until the far-off day that A is fixed.
By this line of reasoning, we shouldn't complain about the turtle-light laws, since there are far more onerous & wide-ranging governmental impositions on the taxpayer. Why not address them?
Too Many Tims| 3.24.11 @ 11:17AM
Is there any evidence that the turtle population has increased since these regulations were put in place? It seems to me that if the answer is "yes" we'd have heard about it by now.
chester arthur| 3.24.11 @ 11:36AM
I've had various types of turtles as pets for about 25 years,and this 'light distracts them' tripe is pretty far off,from what I've seen with actual,real live turtles.When they hatch,they go downhill from the nest.Having seen some with no sense of direction,I know this doesn't always work,but most of them go downhill.Snapping turtles,for instance,go the opposite way from any light they see,as they prefer darker surroundings(contrary to what the internet'expert' sites tell you about their supposed need to bask several hours a day).Box turtles are terrapins in temperment,and don't care about light or water as far as how they travel immediately after hatching.Cooters,yellow bellies, and red bellies will plant eggs in soft ground,like gardens,no matter where the water is,and the babies go downhill,no matter what,since water is more likely downhill from their hatch site.The light controls are an enviroweenie invention to 'punish' anyone daring to buy beachfront property with very little real world evidence to back up such restrictions.Real science,real observation,not liberal lunacy,should apply in imposing any restriction on property owners.
mbd| 3.24.11 @ 12:33PM
Sagebrush and burned out sugar cane fields in central Florida ? Not likely. No sagebrush in the state and the cane fields are in South Florida, mostly south of the the top end of Lake Okeechobee. In central Florida you are more likely to see cattle ranches, scrubland and pine forests - and Disney etc. Incidentally, I concur with the comments of Chester Arthur - the evidence that was relied upon for the imposition of the lighting ban some years ago was questionable at best. My experience is somewhat similar to his. It is interesting to note that several tens of thousands of female sea turtles of four species lay their eggs on the state's beaches each year - most of them on beaches in unpopulated areas. Of the 60-100 eggs in a nest, it is generally thought (but with slight hard data) that one or two hatchlings survive past their juvenile stage. The rest - in the egg stage - fall prey to racoons and foxes and the occasional poacher and - in the hatchling stage - to various marine predators. The few dozen hatchlings that the enviro-enthusiasts have occasionally found migrating westward from the nest to State Road A1A rather than the ocean each year might have resulted in a net loss of half a dozen mature turtles - out of several hundred thousand in the North Atlantic, Gulf and Caribbean. But, I suppose, it is the Cause that is important.
Petronius| 3.24.11 @ 12:59PM
Let's look at the upside. If the ecoweenies and ecoc.u.n.t.s, (Can't Understand Normal Thinking), are staying up all night to protect the precious turtles from their betters, they aren't in bed where they might do something that makes their reproduction possible. May they all die off soon.
lol wut?| 3.24.11 @ 2:11PM
Ft. Lauderdale, central Florida?
lol wut?
Creative Recreation | 8.10.11 @ 11:28PM
is good