Touched by Turtles

In the first part of a longer essay, the science writer Loren Eiseley tells a touching story about when he was a child.  He and a friend of his own age were walking across a high railroad trestle, something they were forbidden to do lest a train come when they were on the bridge.

As Eiseley described the experience, "One could look fearfully down... at the shallows and ripples in the shining water some 50 feet below.... From the abutment of the bridge we gazed down upon the water and saw among the pebbles the shape of an animal we knew only from picture books -- a turtle...."

I was a bit surprised by the next event:  "We scrambled down..."   When I began that sentence, I thought the boys' guilt at being on the forbidden trestle had overtaken them.  The remainder of the sentence, however, revealed that was not the reason:  "We scrambled down the embankment to observe [the turtle] more closely."  At this point, I was touched because it seemed that the boys' delight in another living being had been strong enough to overcome the adventure of trestle crossing.  That was true in a way, but the following sentence brought a darker atmosphere to Eiseley 's story:  "I saw that the turtle, whose beautiful markings shown in the afternoon sun, was not alive.... The reason for his death was plain.  [S]omeone engaged in idle practice with a repeating rifle had stitched a row of bullet holes across the turtle's carapace."

Reading this account, my emotions shifting, I was carried on a sequence from childhood adventure, to feeling the attraction of life, to a sobering realization of the potential dangerousness of humankind.  I felt as if I had been carried on a journey somewhat paralleling the course of U.S. attitudes toward turtles in my own lifetime.

The first turtle I saw as a child was one of the small turtles (only 2 to 3 inches in diameter) once frequently sold in pet stores.  They are less common now because we have learned that they are vulnerable to disease as pets, and thus do not live long.  Today, TV is educating people about the need to protect sea turtles' nesting grounds.  Those campaigns draw upon our human ability to be touched by the cuteness of newly-hatched baby turtles racing to the sea.  People even assist turtle infants in the race.

In many cultures, turtles have frequently represented stability, wisdom (because of the longevity of some species), and patience.  It is that last quality -- especially in the form of dogged persistence -- that shows up in the many variations of Aesop's fable "The Tortoise and the Hare." That fable teaches us that if we persist at working toward a goal, we can "win the race," as long as we don't get cocky like the hare.

In the final part of Loren Eiseley's childhood recollection,  he tells how his father guided him toward a more mature thinking that could incorporate an awareness of human destructiveness. Today in the U.S., we can wonder if our now greater concern for the environment and our growing love for Nature will be dogged enough to catch up with the destructiveness of our previous habits.  Or will the "hare" instead win because it had a head start?

~~~

Have you seen turtles or tortoises in the wild?  Where?  What were they like to you?

(The Eiseley quote is from "The Cosmic Orphan" by Loren Eiseley,

in the Propaedia to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, © 1977.  p. 206)