Obama vs. the Sea Turtles, Humans vs. Aquatic Animals

I’ve said it before. You’ve said it before. And we will all say it again: change, my ass.

The Center for Biological Diversity sent out this jaw-clenching, teeth-grinding news and action alert (send your letter of opposition here) yesterday:

The Obama administration recently moved to triple the number of endangered sea turtles that can be caught by industrial fishing fleets off the Hawaiian coast. In the Gulf of Mexico, sea turtle bycatch will increase by 700 percent.

Warms your heart, doesn’t it?

Of course, lots of people who don’t think twice about killing and eating fishes, crustaceans, and other aquatic animals – who have been convinced that these animals aren’t really animals, beings with intelligence, emotions, capacity for pain and suffering, and a wish to live (they are) — do feel some sort of respect and affection for the aquatic animals they don’t eat: turtles, whales, dolphins, and so on.

Maybe while we try to get people to change their view of fishes and stop eating them (and stop supporting land-animal agriculture, feed for which so many of the fish caught go into, and stop polluting the fishes’ home, via so very many practices — again including land-animal agriculture), every purchase of a dead fish or other aquatic animal at the supermarket and every order of a dead fish or other aquatic animal at a restaurant should be accompanied by photos of all the mangled and dead “lovable” animals who were killed as collateral damage.

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Photo by Flickr user The Lightworks