On Report Cards and Released Turtles

First, thanks to Chris from Beijing for alerting me about the successful expulsion of The Ronald McDonald Report Card from Seminole County schools (here in Florida, but nowhere near me. You may recall I wrote about this issue in December). Thanks to everyone who registered their discontent or passed the story around.

Here’s a statement from the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood:

In the absence of needed government regulation to protect schoolchildren from predatory companies like McDonald’s, the burden is on parents to be vigilant about exploitative marketing aimed at children.  One parent can make a difference.  There is no doubt that the Seminole County ads would have continued – and violated McDonald’s pledge to stop advertising in elementary schools – had one parent not called attention to the problem. And when that parent was joined by other parents and CCFC members, one of our nation’s largest corporations was forced to back down.  What we accomplished in Seminole County should put all marketers on notice:  advertising has no place in our nation’s schools.

Next, I’m pleased to announce that Milton, Kenai and Chumby, three of the four juvenile green sea turtles rehabbed at the sea turtle hospital I volunteer at, were released earlier this week. They fell ill as a result of a Red Tide event north of Palm Beach County. (Red Tide is a harmful algae bloom. 47 turtles were affected, 17 of whom died immediately. We received four survivors to rehab, which basically consisted of antibiotics, a clean tank and clean food for each of them. It took several weeks for them to get back to normal. The fourth, Kona, whom we received a week after the other three, needs a bit more time before he/she can be released.)

Check out a video of the release here, and a video with more backstory here. We had a 100% success rate with the turtles and even though all I do is clean their tanks and talk to people about them, I feel like I played a tiny part in their ability to get back to the ocean quickly, making room for other turtles who are injured or ill.

The green sea turtle is endangered and is a meat-eater as a youngin’, but then eats only plants as an adult.