Endangered Sea Turtles To Be Killed After Experiments At UBC

Is killing an endangered species ever justified? A University of B.C. research team plans to kill seven endangered turtles after their research is complete, and they are defending their actions.

According to a Vancouver Sun report, the ten-year research project focused on turtle diving depths, global fishing policies, and the impact of climate change on the turtles. Bill Milsom, head of UBC's zoology department, reports that in the past twenty years, over 85,000 green sea turtles died from being accidentally caught in fishing nets. Fishing nets also kill an estimated one thousand whales, dolphins, and porpoises every year. To cut down on the turtle death count, the UBC study aims to make recommendations on the placement of fishing nets based on the animal's diving depth.

The study began as a minimally invasive project, implanting tiny devices in the skin of the turtles to determine the impacts of climate change. But the turtles will need major surgery for the final chapter of the research project, which will study why the turtles die when caught in the nets. After the observations are complete, researchers plan to increase the anesthesia until the turtles die.

Milsom explains to Vancouver Sun why they plan to kill the turtles. First, the turtles are legally prohibited from being released into the wild. Due to their long time in captivity, they could infect other animals with parasites or bacteria. Second, nearby aquariums aren't open to taking the sea turtles because they require a large living space. Lastly, Milsom explains that part of the turtle experiment is to harvest their tissues.

Also, the building that is housing the turtle tank is set for demolition -- Milson claims that this did not motivate their decision to kill the turtles. According to Milsom, "As biologists our passion is animals... The work we do is ultimately to the end of conservation and many experiments require some animals to be sacrificed."

Milsom's explanations aren't enough for many animal activists, who are shocked that biologists plan to kill an endangered species -- three of the seven existing sea turtle species are critically endangered. Sea turtles have recently suffered from the BP oil spill, although a NY Times report suggests that most of the 600 turtles found dead during the spill were actually killed by fishing operations... operations that Milsom's team is trying to improve.

Ultimately, it seems that the UBC research group has offered two very different explanations. If the group is killing the sea turtles because they simply don't have anywhere else to put them, many people will argue that there are other options still available. Turtles should not be killed because there is a large amount of paperwork required to relocate the animal. If it's an issue of money since no nearby aquarium can afford to house the turtles, then the group could look into fundraising options. If the school is planning to demolish the building that contains the turtles, then perhaps the school should take responsibility for the living creatures that inhabit the building.

But the other explanation that UBC offers is a bit murkier on the ethical scale. Milsom claims that the final aspect of their research involves invasive surgery and tissue harvesting. Assuming that the research is a success and nets are placed to avoid catching turtles, is it worth seven turtles dying in order to halt a death toll that is now over 85,000? Should seven turtles be sacrificed in the hopes of saving thousands more?

Comments

[Evan DeliFi]

12:44 AM on 04/11/2011

Just a lesson in persuasive writing, you want to end with something that supports your argument, if you genuinely care about the welfare of sea turtles, then you would most likely answer yes to the question "should seven turtles be sacrificed in the hopes of saving thousands more? "

[StarGazr5992]

12:41 PM on 03/19/2011

How sad the human race is only thinks of its self and no other living being that we need to just toss out or kill and then junk the remains of another living being like it was nothing the human race is sick and sad

[Lifeforce Foundation]

12:32 AM on 03/15/2011

Lifeforce, a Vancouver based ecology organization, is demanding that endangered sea turtles be retired to a sanctuary.

If the oldest turtle is 72 years at Sea Life Centres and if green sea turtles can live up to 100 years then none of the turtles are on deaths doorstep. They should die in peace and not be subjected to painful, unnecessary experiments.

UBC claims that major surgeries must be done to complete a study of diving depths.

In the wild, sea turtles continue to dive to depths already known by observations from field studies. The massive fishing nets continue to intrude into their territories. Environmentalists have been fighting for fishing moratoriums and bans on destructive fishing operations. Sound deterrents have been tested on some fishing nets in attempts to prevent dolphin, porpoise, and whale entrapment. Some of the TEDs (Turtle Excluder Devices) and TSDs (Turtle Saving Devices) have been developed as far back as the 70s. In the wild dive depths and ranges of turtles have been determined by attaching data loggers and satellite tags to sea turtles and other marine wildlife. UBC has participated and are fully aware of these alternatives.

Imprisoning sea turtles in laboratory chambers and tanks to look at thermoregulation, dive behaviour and heart rate will not save them or others. Harnessing them, starving them and subjecting them many other stressful, painful experimental procedures are extremely cruel, scientifically fallacious and absolutely unnecessary. No breakthroughs here at UBC and certainly no justification for over ten years of experiments.

[Jwroberts16]

07:53 PM on 03/09/2011

Endangered green sea turtles may get new lease on life
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Endangered+green+turtles+lease+life/4406510/story.html

[thromulese]

06:06 PM on 03/09/2011

I always thought it was illegal to kill an endangered specious regardless of who you are.

Killing them just seems like the “easy/cheap” thing to do when they should be doing what is RIGHT, but less convenient.

[KidShalleen]

05:03 AM on 03/09/2011

Sounds reasonable to me,...kill away!
Say,...how about studying Rethuglikans, next. ;)

[08finally]

12:53 PM on 03/09/2011

Best idea i have heard in a long time. However we could just put them to sleep with additional anesthesia and use the money for something more constructive.

[mudshark12]

01:15 AM on 03/08/2011

Should seven turtles be sacrificed in the hopes of saving thousands more? NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is unethical to euthanize healthy endangered animals.

If these people consider themselves to be scientists they will find wild sea turtles and observe: how deep can they dive?

The post gave several viable alternatives to relocating the turtles after the building their turtle tank is housed in is demolished.

As for " ... will study why the turtles die when caught in the nets."

GirlUsingBrain said:

"Huh? Are you serious? I can tell you without even looking at a sea turtle.

These animals breath air. They drown when they are caught in nets and cannot free themselves to surface for air."

She said it so well! Scientists: Use Your Brains!!!

[Martin Houde]

01:47 PM on 03/08/2011

The study is not only about how they die. Everyone knows it's from drowning.

Rather, the question is why they end up in the nets. Sea turtles are masters of sea navigation. Is is chemicals, boats disturbing their magnetic field readings (which they use to navigate), etc ?

Another point : Those turtles were born in a turtle farm and were never wild. The scientists did not sample from wild turtles. So while the species is endangered, the scientists took nothing from the wild sea turtle population.

And those turtles were to be euthanized, so whether there was an option to let them live or not, it doesn't make any difference.

[Martin Houde]

10:50 PM on 03/07/2011

This a very charged issue, as seen in the discussion. The main problem is that it is dealing with sea turtles and not rodents...

I do research on mice, as I am a PhD candidate in pharmacology. I can say that animal researchers are not monsters. In fact, we care about the animals and really go out of our way to prevent animal suffering. Lessening the stress of animals gives better data anyway. This is not the case of the mentioned turtles, but animal research is clearly crucial to medical research. Fundamental. Medical development would grind to a very slow crawl without it, with most potential therapeutic targets missed altogether.

This is no fun killing animals. But what we like about animal research is that the data is from a real, complete system. It's always a non-replaceable model, refined to the maximum and the number of animals is reduced to the strict minimum.

Here, the animals were bred into captivity. The final part of the research requires too invasive a surgery to let them revive. And in any case, there's nowhere to put them afterwards.

I don't expect people who are against animal use in research to accept it overnight. People should in fact think critically about it. But I urge people to hold judgement on such emotionally charger issues and treat people with respect.

And it does seem this article was written by someone quite against this project. But if it ultimately saves turtles, go for it.

[kansasbashkir]

09:19 AM on 03/08/2011

Sir...I do respect the hard work of research scientists. My son and my Mother are both scientists and mathmeticians. But I do not condone research on animals.
You've worked very hard in your profession, but in the course of your studies you've also caused suffering. It's an emotionally charged issue for good reason.

Well written letters though. Nice use of language.

[VanTroi]

09:39 AM on 03/08/2011

You should experiment on yourself.

[Martin Houde]

01:53 PM on 03/08/2011

Rather hard to do a cardiac study on an atherosclerosis model on myself...as atherosclerosis is decades-long to develop in humans, and I can't study my own heart. Also, find me human genetic models. And, would you want Alzheimer's disease data be obtained by AD patients studying themselves ? And sadly, post-mortem tissue analysis can only tell you this much about early mechanisms...

Animal research is an essential component to medical research. Even most cell models depend on animal research, as immortalized cell lines are cancerous cells by definition. Not your typical cell in any way.

You don't have to like it. I only ask that you treat people who perform such research with respect, and acknowledge this is necessary for our medical development.

[loveistheanswer4you]

04:00 PM on 03/08/2011

....wow. That was a clearly intelligent and thought out statement.... I seriously hope people like that don't get into science or leadership.

[Martin Houde]

10:22 PM on 03/07/2011

These animals were NEVER free. They were born on a farm precisely for the purpose of research. So it's not as if the researchers caught a few turtles then wanted to kill them.

Secondly, the invasive surgery and collection of tissue samples is a good argument for research. As I work in a biomedical lab (PhD candidate), I can say a ton of information can be obtained by tissue analysis. I think the team wants to test biological and biomolecular parameters to check against their other behavior data. Perhaps to test for different toxins as well. That's speculation on my part. But I'm sure that the research team will do everything to maximize the amount of data they collect from the turtles. Murkier on the ethical scale ? That's what we do with rodents everyday. And the scientist says himself that the lack of a place to put the turtles afterwards plays no effect to kill the turtles, but would have brought this end anyway if the final surgery was not performed.

I say, go ahead. But make sure you do everything to maximize data collection, and that the turtles don't suffer.

[Jwroberts16]

11:03 PM on 03/07/2011

HP never indicates in this story where these animals came from. according to a herp forum in edmonton, a contributor who was a graduate student at UBC indcated that the animals were purchased as hatchlings at a commercial turtle farm in the Cayman Islands. (yes, commercial farms for food!)

In addition, according to an Edmonton herp forum a post from a former UBC grad states:

"Another detail overlooked and omitted in this is that it is NATIONWIDE REGULATION , not UBC's idea, that ALL captive animals in scientific experimentation be terminated at the end of experimentation. In other words, it's not a policy decided by UBC.The matter is out of UBC's hands. The decision has been made for them, the only option left to them is termination. With this in mind, Dr. Milsom did what he thought was the most ethical thing possible: if the animals could not escape death, then try to harvest as much information as possible"

it appears the turtles were going to be killed regardless , and the biologists were at least trying to obtain info from the animals under a bad situation being imposed on them. the alternative was having to kill the animals (because the study was over, based on Canadian law) and disposing of their bodies. you can believe that or not, but until the whole story comes out, i m not willing to jump to a conclusion on who is "insane, evil or wrong" because of the HP

[Nerdiac]

07:30 PM on 03/10/2011

So they were born on a farm, eh? Even more reason to leave them alone! They haven't been out and about, living the same way wild turtles do, so their behaviors would most likely be unique to them; any information gleaned would be specific to semi-domesticated turtles.

[cosmiCataclysm]

05:26 PM on 03/07/2011

It'd be at least decent to let them live in a f-ing swimming pool. Why do you think you have to kill the little buggers? Now you've gone and embarrassed yourselves.

[jeffbiss]

04:44 PM on 03/07/2011

There is absolutely no valid reason for these psychopaths to kill the turtles. I'm going to contact animal welfare groups to start an action that will hopefully stop these freaks from killing their research subjects. Others should too.

[Max Shaw]

03:56 PM on 03/07/2011

I was going to list many alternatives to killing these poor hardshells, but the list the article gives are sound in themselves. I argue that there is no logical reason for these animals to be killed. None...

[CynWaveRider]

03:23 PM on 03/07/2011

These people are insane to think murder of aniamls is justified. STOP THE WAR ON ANIMALS, this is disgusting, immoral and should be illegal. Canada has been horrific in crimes against animals. Can't someone stop this igorance?
“A country or civilization is judged by the way it treats its animals.” Mahatma Gandhi

“The day will come when people like me will view the murder of an animal the same way they view that of a man today.” Leonardo da Vinci

[VanTroi]

09:40 AM on 03/08/2011

Agreed!

[Andrew Schoeberl]

01:56 PM on 03/08/2011

In my opinion, humans are far too subjective too often...

[edduhduh]

03:01 PM on 03/07/2011

I'd hate to be an animal on this planet.

[loveistheanswer4you]

03:57 PM on 03/08/2011

I'd hate to be an animal on another planet.

[kansasbashkir]

02:57 PM on 03/07/2011

Well, that's just great. Capture endangered turtles (I know. They've been held for ten years. News flash folks. The Sea Turtle has been endangered for more than ten years. Numbers have been declining for much longer than that.) Experiment on Sea Turtles. Then kill Sea Turtles, all to find out why they're dying. (Over fishing with trolling nets and pollution...and I didn't need to do a ten year study to prove that one either!)
We are so arrogant! The irony in this story is unbelievable. Wonder how many so called academics are going to get their PHD's off of this little gambit? But, hey, they're just turtles...right?