Hello, my name is Shelly. I am a sea turtle who was
born in the Gulf of Mexico. The story of
my life is a struggle but hopefully it enlightens you on the impacts that
humans have made on wildlife around the world.
In
the first few breaths of my life all I saw was sand and light. I emerged from my shell using all the force I
could and finally broke through. As I
crawled out of my nest with my brothers and sisters, I began to shuffle towards
the ocean. Immediately, danger was eminent. There were enormous birds everywhere. I would watch them swoop down and snatch a sibiling
in an instant. These birds were dwarfed
in comparison to the humans watching us.
I had only made it about 20 feet so far and was moving as fast as I could. I knew once that I got to the water I would
have made it to the very first milestone in my life.
I
could finally see it. The waves were
crashing down right in front of me. I
stuck my first fin into the water and had a sudden rush of relief. I knew that this journey was not over. There were crab waiting for us the second we
got in. More of my brothers and sisters
faced casualties. Once I made it to the
deep water I thought that I was finally safe but there was a dark cloud in the
distance. I was scared so I moved to
some cover to see what it was. It slowly
moved towards us. No one knew what was going on. All of a sudden a dark cloud moved over
us. It became difficult to swim. Struggling,
I finally made it to the surface. We
were all covered in some gooey material.
The birds were covered. Everything was black from this. Eventually I washed up on shore. How could this happen? What was the cause of this destruction? Blinded by the goo, I was lifted by
something. I thought I was dying. I felt a soft material on my scales and this
material was washed off. It was a
human. They put me in a crate and brought
me to a different beach that was nice and clean. I had the chance to grow up and become the
healthy turtle I am today.
I
hope my story has shown to you that human interaction has destroyed many
ecosystems. Luckily I was saved by
one. Humans are the cause to many of the
problems in nature but they can also be the solution.
Tommy,
ReplyDeleteI like the story embedded in the moral! It is ingenuous to take on the point of view of a sea turtle, as this point of view commands the reader's empathy for a living thing that is otherwise almost invisible to many. You grant the turtle voice that it doesn't have in current political dialogues that directly impact its environment and lifespan.
Great idea. This could be developed into a much longer piece, in which the reader learns much more about life in the sea. I love the rendering of the oil spill as a "dark cloud."
Spring