Turtle Farming

I am a close supporter and admirer of the work of WSPA, World Society for the Protection of Animals. Currently they are campaigning to stop sea turtle farming in the Cayman Islands.

'Sea turtles crushed, stressed and diseased. Living with open wounds in waste-filled waters. Welcome to the Cayman Turtle Farm.'

The Cayman Turtle Farm was built in 1968 and aimed to deal with the rising consumption of green sea turtle meat, by farming the animals industrially so as not to deplete the wild population of the species. This farm is known as a 'tourist attraction' and a 'conservation project', however it is in fact abusive of the turtles and most tourists are disgusted.

The conditions at the Caymen Turtle Farm are appalling. Due to the close proximity of the turtles, stress-induced fighting causes many infected wounds and inbreeding produces many deformities such as turtles being born with no eyes.

Also the farm does not seem to be imitating their natural environment at all as you would expect a conservation project to do. An example of this is their food. In the wild green sea, turtles have a very specific diet and only feed on sea grass - however on the farm they are fed pellets to increase their growth, proving that this is no conservation project, but rather a commercial farm only interested in producing large turtles to sell. 

To support the campaign about this go to :http://e-activist.com/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=24&ea.campaign.id=16220&ea.tracking.id=website

For more information on this go to: http://stopseaturtlefarm.org

British Divers Marine Life Rescue

I am currently looking to apply to a veterinary related course at universities. For this you are required to make yourself different and stand out, the best way to do this is by going above and beyond with work experience. 

Recently I have found an amazing course which I think will defiantly make any aspiring vets stand out a little more. The course is a Marine Mammal Medic training course with the British Divers Marine Life Rescue. 

These are sessions in which you will be shown what to do in situations of animal rescue by the sea, for example strandings of seals, dolphins and whales.

However you do have to pay for these courses and they are only in select places. The course usually costs around £90 and on the British Divers Marine Life Rescue website (http://www.bdmlr.org.uk/) you can find more information about the courses around the  UK.

Anatomical Studies Dissections

For the next few weeks I have opted for an anatomical studies programme offered at my school to broaden my range skills and knowledge in this area. This week in the 2 hour session we dissected muscles and marine ragworms. Here are some pictures of what we got up to !

Male (left) and female (right) mussels, you can tell this by their colourings.

After my dissections where I removed their foots, digestive systems, gills, anterior adductor muscles, mantles and anus.

This was our marine ragworm ready for dissection.

If you apply pressure just above the head of the ragworm, it's fangs can be seen more prominently.

Here you can clearly see the oesophagus  of the ragworm.

This clearly shows in anatomy of the marine ragworm, followed by a post dissection snapshot.