8. Turtles, TEDs, and Troubles
With a jerk of the tail bag rope, a deluge of fishy, bulging-eyed water creatures tumbled out on the deck, a huge loggerhead sea turtle on top of the pile. Dock lights gleamed off her scaly yellow flippers and brown barnacle-covered shell. Gasping for breath, she slowly blinked her heavy-lidded eyes. As she gained strength, she began plowing through the squirming catch of croakers, crabs, and shrimp like a bulldozer.
The RV Georgia Bulldog, a 73-foot shrimp trawler run by the University of Georgia, was dragging its nets along the Georgia Sea Islands at the height of the sea turtle nesting season. One of the trawls had a turtle excluder device (TED), or “turtle shooter,” as the shrimpers called it. The other was ...
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