NEW DANGER FOR THE SEATURTLES ON BALI
Please read the following announcement of our partner organisation SOS Seaturtles and take action by sending a letter of protest:
Sea turtles on Bali are once more in danger of being butchered. You can help prevent it. Once again we ask for your support. We have managed to put a stop to this slaughter before. But now the 'turtle mafia' on Bali is at it again. The governor of Bali is being pressured to permit slaughtering thousands of sea turtles for 'religious purposes'.
The gory reality of how the sea turtles are being slaughtered on Bali ! Copyright: Kurt Amsler
About a year ago we could proudly announce that the campaign to stop the slaughter of sea turtles on Bali had been a success.
The cages and slaughterhouses in Tanjung Benoa are now all empty and no more turtles are being traded in public places. While it is still possible to find some animals on the black market they are now hard to find. The numbers of killed and traded animals have dropped around 90 percent since the onset of the campaign!
There were reasons to be proud. After an eight year battle against the Turtle mafia we seem to have won the war. Yet the issue is now rising its ugly head again. Thanks to an intensive lobbying by various interest groups, the Balinese Government are now considering permitting the killing and trading of a thousand sea turtles per year ...for Balinese rituals. Obviously such a decision will open the floodgates to uncontrolled killing once again and it will be impossible to control the number of animals slaughtered!
We need to react now!
It is not too late to act. The opposition and the Pro Fauna organization are engaged in ongoing discussions on various political levels. But they need our immediate support. SOS-Seaturtles is already financially supporting the entire administration as well as initiating a petition during which thousands of letters of protest will be sent to the authorities.
We are very concerned for Bali's sea turtles and don’t consider such a decision just a domestic issue.
Watch the video from Bali on the link below. This movie was filmed a decade ago. Do you want this to happen again?
"Video - Bali Slaghterhouse"
We therefore ask everyone to urgently sign and dispatch a letter of protest which can easily be done by clicking on the following link
Important note! Some Browsers as FIREFOX, do not open the link. In such a case please copy the letter down below in your mail program for sending.
I think you will spare three minutes of your time you can contribute to rescuing a thousand sea turtles a year.
Thank you for your support
Kurt Amsler
Founder SOS-SEATURTLES
Send to:
,
, info@sos-seaturtles.ch
Your Honour
I'm very much concerned about how endangered sea turtles are being treated in your country. Until 10 years ago on Bali alone, an average of twenty thousand sea turtles per year were brutally cut out of their tortoiseshell alive! As a result of wise decisions by the Government, several actions by the Bali Police and campaigns by Indonesian and international animal welfare organizations, this number has fortunately dropped to 90 percent and according to latest investigations, even less nowadays. However, in view of the sea turtles being threatened with extinction, every animal counts.
Next to the damage on the environment, the killing of sea turtles is illegal according to the Indonesian Government decree No 7 /1999, and the trade of turtle products by CITES regulations.
Regarding to latest publications in international medias, I learnt that the Bali Government plans to give permission to the killing and trading of 1000 Turtles per year for Balinese rituals. It is obvious and a matter of fact, that such a decision will open the floodgates to uncontrolled killing again, because it will be impossible to control the number of animals slaughtered!
If this quota becomes reality, it would definitely damage the image of Bali and will have an impact on the number of visitors. Hundreds of thousands of people are very much concerned about Bali's sea turtles and don’t consider such a decision as a national issue.
I very much hope that the killing of one thousand of sea turtles annually will never become reality !
Sincerely yours,