The biggest turtle ... in the world of all
Three hundred pounds? Four? Seven feet, quite tall
If they could jump more, they *could* play basketball [1]

Caretta caretta
Don't make 'em much betta'
Get caught in fishnet: uh, --
It's down they go [2]

The broadest ranging, found around the Earth (beach: birth) [3]
Atlantic; Ind'ya; 'cross Pacific's girth
Med'terran'yan; Saving? -- I think they're worth! [4]

Caretta caretta
A loss we'd regret-ta [5]
Survived Nature's vet-ta
Since long ago [6]

[instrumental -- theme from "Jaws", as large sharks are about the only animal able to attempt to prey on a loggerhead lucky enough to not be eaten as an egg or baby and to make it to maturity. (Fewer than 1 in 100 eggs will become mature adults -- often, far fewer). Do-doomp .... Do-doomp....]

They tracked Caretta way across the sea (whoo-eee!)
The longest journey, and a "first" for "she":
Swimming, Adelita: puts to shame, Mike P! [7]

Caretta caretta
A sad operetta
Let's stop this vendetta
Tell whole world, "No!"

Caretta caretta
Don't ever forget-ta
Like Christmas poinsettia,***
Please breed and grow!

(New chance, bestow)
(For life below)
(People, now you know)




*** Dictionary allows both pronunciations: "poin-set-ee-uh" and "poin-set-uh". The second is used here, obviously, for rhyme and pacing. (Geek-note: Named after Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first United States Minister to Mexico, who introduced the plant into the US in 1828.)

[1] Largest hard-shelled turtle in the world. Average adult weight is 200-400 lbs, but the known record is 1200 lbs. (545 kg). Size ranges up to 7 ft. (2.1m), but that's *just the shell*. Add the head, neck, and tail, and ... the other reason they're not in the NBA? They run at, uh, a turtle's pace.

[2] The biggest threat to the loggerheads (and many other turtles) if they make it to maturity is fishing gear. Being air-breathers, turtles often drown in trawling nets and many other kinds of fishing gear. The US and some other countries have mandated Turtle Excluder Devices (TED) for shrimp trawlers and other fishing boats, helping to keep turtles out of the nets, or to escape if caught, while the shrimp still make it to your cocktail sauce. (A pox on the first person to suggest a TED for AIR! ;)

Plastic bags, tossed at the beach or from boats, resemble jellyfish, a favorite food of some turtles and other marine life. They choke on them. Those plastic six-ringed six-pack holders can also be mistaken for food, or many marine animals get their heads, neck, or body trapped in them. Their usage is declining in many areas for that reason. In any event, you wouldn't like it if a whale took a dump on your doorstep, so please throw the trash into a real trash container, which the ocean is *not*. Thank you.

The biggest environmental threat is loss of nesting habitat due to coastal development, dredging, etc. Females may be frightened away from nesting by bright coastal street lights, neon signs, building lights, etc., and the hatching babies, who use the full moon to guide them to the water, can and *do* go in the wrong direction if the coastline is lit. In some US communities, beachside residents must either close all blinds or shut off all lights (except maybe the bathroom night-light) from dusk to dawn from May through October.

Some conservationists have worked for two years to get the streetlights and parking lot lights aimed down instead of out; pushed local code enforcement officers to force businesses to comply with the lighting laws; rescued baby turtles who were crawling the wrong way, or had a bite mark on their right rear flipper and couldn't make it out past the shorebreak; and sat many nights on their balconies writing song parodies on a laptop computer with only a small headband-mounted light to guide their clumsy flippers on the keyboard.

[3] Florida is the largest single nesting grounds in the *world* for the loggerhead. One-fourth of *all* sea turtles nesting in the US, mostly loggerheads, green sea turtles (cough), and some leatherbacks, do so in the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge, a 20-mile (~32km) stretch of beach from Melbourne Beach to Wabasso Beach, Florida. Despite the fact that loggerheads don't reach sexual maturity until somewhere between ages 17-33, and green turtles, between ages 20-50, nesting females of both species return to the exact same beach from which they themselves were hatched, if the beach is still there. (Mom! Mom! T. T. phone home!)

[4] Largest range of any sea turtle on the planet, covering all but the coldest oceans and seas, as well as some coastal estuaries. They don't come ashore, except when the females nest.

[5] Regarded globally as Endangered, and in some locales as "only" Threatened, trade in loggerhead turtle products is internationally prohibited. Some peoples still eat loggerhead meat and eggs, despite the risk of poisoning from dangerous bacteria, and of being confronted by an angry, law-enforcing green sea turtle with a Smith & Wesson Model 10™. (You think The Hulk gets angry? Don't make The Turtle angry! You wouldn't like him when he's angry!)

[6] The first turtles arose about 200-280 million years ago; the first sea turtles, about 110 million years ago. The Loggerhead species is believed to be about 40 million years old. Then, in a few centuries.... in danger of becoming extinct, having survived everything that Nature could throw at them except Man.

[7] Nesting sites along the eastern Pacific Basin (e. g., US or Mexican West Coast) are rare; studies suggest that 95% of the population along the west coast of the Americas hatch on the Japanese Islands in the western Pacific. The turtles are transported by the prevailing currents across the full length of the northern Pacific, a migration route that is one of the longest of any marine animal. Evidence of a *return* journey came from an adult female loggerhead named Adelita, who in 1996, tagged with a satellite tracking device, made the 9,000-mile (15,000km) trip from Mexico across the Pacific. Adelita was the first animal of any kind ever tracked across an ocean basin. Top *that*, Michael Phelps!

Loggerheads have an iron compound in their brains that allows them to perceive the Earth's magnetic field for navigation. This iron in the brain also explains a lot about TT.