Internet, the truth can sometimes be hard to find. There is a quote
attributed to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan that I am using more and more
these days, “… you are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not
entitled to your own facts.” We can all offer many examples of reports and
accounts where the blurring of fact and opinion are “business as usual.”
Sadly, it is becoming all too common.
It is now quite obvious that we are going to need better ways to verify our
information. There is too much of it, and because we (as media consumers)
have so much control over the media we consume, we can inadvertently cocoon
ourselves in the comfort of only the information we wish to hear. Why listen
to the opposition? Simply listen to your thought leader’s interpretation of
the opposition. You can select your filter and only receive the media that
you allow to pass through it: print, text, audio, video and, to some extent,
even television. This has always been true for tightly ruled communities,
but they used territorial or even totalitarian methods to achieve media
isolation. I don’t think any society has ever been technologically empowered
to achieve self-selected media isolation at this scale.
Just the other day I received a couple of emails that reminded me that the
highly self-serving fact and opinion issues (which are exacerbated by the
advent of remarkably powerful social media tools) pales by comparison to the
problems caused by non-professional, uninformed, unschooled, inductive
interpretation of actual facts.
Here is the body of an email that has been circulating around the Internet:
Sending you an e-mail of the turtles on the beaches of Costa Rica. See the
2nd picture too, where the female cannot cover up her own eggs, before the
Intruder steals away what Nature has given her to protect her young. These
people have, unfortunately, taught their children nothing for the future
generation to cherish. Look at these children and they do not know anything
about conservation of Marine Life Protection and look at the disastrous road
their parents are taking too … what have they all gained for the future of
Costa Rica’s Marine Life protection? World Wide shame in COSTA RICA. Please
distribute widely. The Turtle eggs are stolen to be sold. The planet is
thankful.
The email was accompanied with a series of 12 pictures. Here is a
representative sample:
At first glance, this is a heart-breaking pictorial essay with a narrative
that, although poorly written, is impassioned. The writer clearly believes
that these people are doing a great wrong and, for those
unschooled-in-the-art, it is easy to agree.
However, this narrative is simply one interpretation of the facts in
evidence. And, assuming the writer has no first-hand knowledge of the
situation, the writer, and most readers, are using some form of inductive
reasoning to reach their conclusions.
Here’s a copy of the second email I received on this subject:
Please forward this to everybody you sent the sea turtle picture to:
Were these photos of the turtle “egg theft” not accompanied by the message
at the bottom that explained that this was really not egg theft but an
attempt to blend decent science with local economic development designed to
save both the turtles and the local economy from real poachers? Here’s a
copy that should have accompanied the photos:
The project in Costa Rica is part of a sustainable-harvest project designed
to take into account local customs and needs of the population in order to
provide ultimately, maximum conservation of the species. Costa Rica is one
of the world leaders in wildlife conservation. They have found that total
bans and knee-jerk activism aren’t always the best ways to improve wildlife
conservation.
Please read this and see that the story is more complex:
Scientists found that the turtles come ashore here four or five times over a
10 month period. Each time hundreds of Ridley Turtles arrive in Ostional for
a mass egg laying fest, coming to shore in mass nesting events, what are
called an arribada, “an arrival”. Each turtle lays 100 eggs or more. The
event will last for 4 or 5 days and scientists discovered that since eggs
deposited by early arrives were being crushed by the next waves of turtles
coming to lay eggs, it made sense to allow locals in this area to remove the
first wave of eggs, since they were destined to be crushed anyway. It was
also realized that eggs laid during the dry season were unlikely to ever
hatch due to the heat of the sand, which dehydrated the eggs.
So it was decided to let the towns folk collect and sell the eggs and use
the money to help preserve the eggs in the subsequent waves of egg laying.
The money was also used to build facilities in town, like schools and a
clinic. Some of the money also ends up in the pockets of towns people,
providing income where few jobs exist. The collected eggs are sold in bars
and stores to meet the demand for turtle eggs and helps discourage poaching
of eggs more likely to hatch. By providing a sufficient source of turtle
eggs, the price of eggs stays low on the black market, discouraging
incentive to poach them. Ridley turtle eggs are about the size of a lime and
leathery. They are amazingly tough and can be gathered into large sacks
without breaking.
Since 1986 turtle eggs have been legally gathered by an organization know as
the Association of Integral Development of Ostional (AIDO). The main goal of
the exploitation and marketing of turtle eggs by the Association of Integral
Development of Ostional (AIDO) is to achieve social growth of the community
through controlled removal of eggs without compromising the reproduction and
conservation of the species. The eggs were initially sold through the
association but in about 1990 a food purveyor took over distribution on a
national basis. Most of the eggs end up in and around the central valley and
nearly 90% of them are consumed in bars, often mixed with catsup and a few
other lesser ingredients in a beverage known as a sangrita, served with
beer.
Dr. Simon C. Nemtzov
Wildlife Ecologist
Is the first email correct? Is the second? I really don’t know, so I’ll ask
you: “Which came first … the turtle or the egg?” 
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