So it seems that people in Brazil traditionally eat turtle on their birthdays. The fact came up during a class discussion of turtle conservation and CITES, and while I know that eating an endangered, charismatic species isn't funny at all, I still can't help but chuckle at the image of birthday turtle, lit candles sticking out at odd angles from the creature's carapace. Turtle, according to people I know who have actually had some, tastes like chicken, although I can't imagine that it has the same texture. I kind of want to say that they'd be slimier, though that's probably because I imagine them mucking around in algae and being generally very gooey beneath their shells. Like snails - which, come to think of it, are really quite firm and chewy. So maybe I'm wrong.

Also - did you know that indigenous people in Costa Rica who harvest turtle eggs are actually helping nesting populations? Clever biologists figured out that Olive Ridleys are actually overlaying in Cosat Rican National Parks, thus attracting more predators to the site and losing more eggs to them than they otherwise would. The extra, rotten eggs also contaminate the viable ones still in the nests. Anyway, this new international law designed to protect turtle species is calling for the harvest to be stopped (something that will obviously hurt populations) and the local people are up in arms. And that's why we all love bureaucracy. I wish there was an online petition I could point people to, but I couldn't find one - anyway, the name of the convention is the IAC (Inter-American Convention for the Protection and Conservation of Sea Turtles) so if you ever see news articles about them remember to boo because despite their good intentions they're still destroying the world.