This is not my fight.However, if I do nothing, I am just as complicit as those who killed the sea turtles.So, I am doing something. I am telling you.

Located in the Bay of Bengal in Eastern India, Puri is home to beautiful beaches,

devout Hindu people and ancient temples.

I travel to nearby Bangladesh regularly to work with impoverished women in a village about 45 minutes from India.

On this recent trip, I promised myself a break to visit Puri.  I looked forward to seeing the ancient temples, to write and relax.  I rose early, eager to experience my first sunrise walk on Puri beach. That walk launched an unexpected moral dilemma that left me confused, sickened, and downright mad.

---

Within my first few steps, a freshly killed sea turtle washed up with the tide. I stopped in my tracks. I scanned the shoreline; eight more turtles. All of them dead. I spun around to see if anyone else was seeing what I was seeing. No one seemed to notice or even care.

How could these people just blithely walk by?

I felt like running and shaking them.  “Hello. Dead sea turtles! All over the beach!”

Where was their outrage?

I continued numbly along the beach.  A pack of wild dogs moved from carcass to carcass, feeding on the remains of what I would learn were Olive ridley sea turtles.

On the vulnerable species list, there are very few nesting grounds remaining for Olive ridley turtles.

This 1000 meter stretch of beach in Puri, India is one of them.

I could no longer enjoy the rising Indian sun or hear the ocean waves crashing onto the shore.

All I could see were the dogs eating the sea turtles.  All I could hear was “Do something!”

“This is not my fight!” I thought.

My fight is human rights, women’s empowerment, and ending poverty.

I trudged back to my hotel room.

I could not relax.

I could not concentrate.

I could not write.

I stepped onto my balcony for some fresh air.  Two of the carcasses were within my view.  I tried to position myself where I couldn’t see them.  My conscious knew those sea turtles were there and dared me to do something about them.

“All right!” I finally screamed into the wind, “I’ll do something.”

As I grumbled at the audacity of the universe to hand me this moral dilemma, I noticed a man bent with age slowly making his way along the beach. He was headed straight for one of the turtles.

As I watched him dig, I started thinking. Digging these holes and burying these turtles is incredibly hard work. Someone has to be paying him. Was it the hotel?

I had to find out. What he told me blew my mind.

The government? Seriously!

You mean to tell me, despite India’s fairly robust law on the protection of Olive ridley sea turtles, the government was paying this guy to bury evidence that the law isn’t working?

As I stood there incredulous, an old Frenchman turned Hindu approached.  Thin and draped with prayer beads, he noticed my focus on the dead sea turtles. “Do you know why?” He shouted over the wind. “No, I don’t.  Why?” I shouted back. “The fishermen. The fishermen are killing them.” He said. “If you go down the beach about 500 meters you will find a little fishing village there.  They will tell you exactly what’s happening.”

“This makes me mad.” I told him.

“Yea, well, you guys make hamburgers. It’s all the same.” With that said, he walked on.

“Touché.” my French Hindu friend.

I had all I could take for one day.

My conscious marginally satisfied I was going to do “something”, the remainder of my day was uneventful.

From my balcony the next morning I could see more two turtles had washed up in the night.  A scan of the shoreline revealed several more.  In the distance I saw the old man starting his day.  It was time to find that fishing village.

15 minutes later I was standing in the tiny fishing village of Penthakata. The French Hindu was right. These small boat fishermen knew exactly who and what was killing the Olive ridley turtles.

Let me get this straight. The Indian Coast Guard is charged with protecting one of the only remaining Olive ridley nesting grounds in the world.

Despite having fairly state of the art ships, the Indian Coast Guard can not seem to catch the huge, slow moving trawlers when they venture into illegal fishing zones where the turtles nest and live. It is the fishermen on those trawlers, locals say, who are the source of the massive Olive ridley deaths.

When it comes to protecting the Olive ridley sea turtle, it seems to me, the Indian government is doing nothing but putting on a good show.

Every day the evidence of this “show” gets buried by an old man for 200 Indian Rupee ($3.00)

The small boat fishermen told me during the month of December, more than one thousand  Olive ridley sea turtles wash ashore each day.

As I made my long journey home, I had a lot of time to think.

What would I do about what I saw and heard on Puri beach?

Now you know what I decided.

I decided to tell you.

Like me, sea turtles may not be your fight.

If not, I trust you will do what I did. Tell someone. You can do that by sharing this blog.

If you would like to make Olive ridley sea turtles your fight, there are a few organizations and grass roots movements  you can join, already trying to make a difference.

I can’t wait to see what you will do next.