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[JNev]

How to butcher a turtle - 5 slides

OK not a sea turtle but......

Yum - hard to pass up if you're stranded.  Maybe Lambrecht saw a pile of turtle shells...

As an aside, I was fascinated with the shape of the flesh once out of the shell (well, duh - just hadn't thought of it though); the entrail arrangement was equally as fascinating - what an odd creature they are, sans-shell.

As a further aside, one guesses it tastes "about like chicken"?

[Ric Gillespie]

Yum - hard to pass up if you're stranded.

The absence of limb bones at the Seven Site suggests that no turtle flesh was actually eaten by the castaway.  She may have simply found a dead turtle on the beach decayed beyond use as food and salvaged the shell for water collection/storage.  Gallagher reported, "Body had obviously been lying under a "ren" tree and remains of fire, turtle and dead birds appear to indicate life."  He didn't describe what part of the turtle was there.

[JNev]

That makes sense, Ric.  I would think had the purpose been consumption more / different remains might have been in evidence.  The thing may have well been an expediant use of opportuntiy for basic survival other-than food.

As to the native treatment of the sea turtle... all tongue-in-cheek regarding the more common, small variety above, agree.  I've never been able to clean a fish without dispatching it first and don't see a reason to treat a creature that way.  Different outlook; one hopes the human condition will grow to overcome such practices over time to come.

[Chris Johnson]

Yum - hard to pass up if you're stranded.

The absence of limb bones at the Seven Site suggests that no turtle flesh was actually eaten by the castaway.  She may have simply found a dead turtle on the beach decayed beyond use as food and salvaged the shell for water collection/storage.  Gallagher reported, "Body had obviously been lying under a "ren" tree and remains of fire, turtle and dead birds appear to indicate life."  He didn't describe what part of the turtle was there.

Isn't the jury still out on the 'bones' that TIGHAR found and had tested for DNA?

[Ric Gillespie]

Isn't the jury still out on the 'bones' that TIGHAR found and had tested for DNA?

Yes and no. We have one small fragment of bone.  At first we thought it was a turtle finger bone (turtles have "fingers" inside their flippers) but when we realized we don't have any other turtle limb bones we wondered if the finger bone might be human.  Testing by the University of Oklahoma Molecular Biology Laboratory confirmed the presence the presence of human mtDNA but not enough to sequence.  Extraction of mtDNA is a destructive process and not much of the bone is left.  Rather than use it up in another try we decided to hold off any further testing until the technology allows more efficient sampling.

[Mark Appel]

All the while the poor thing is enduring its butchering with an expression of resigned agony. 
I wasn't present when this was done or I would have stopped it.  Our dive team leader on that trip filmed it out of curiosity about native ways.  You don't want to know what I think of native ways.

Sickening, repulsive, senseless cruelty. Be hard to shake that image for awhile...

[Chris Johnson]

All the while the poor thing is enduring its butchering with an expression of resigned agony. 
I wasn't present when this was done or I would have stopped it.  Our dive team leader on that trip filmed it out of curiosity about native ways.  You don't want to know what I think of native ways.

Sickening, repulsive, senseless cruelty. Be hard to shake that image for awhile...

Yes from our perspective but thats the way its done out there.

[Ric Gillespie]

Yes from our perspective but thats the way its done out there.

I was thinking more from the turtle's perspective.
I have great respect for tradition but some traditional practices are wrong from any perspective.
A few examples that come immediately to mind:
- Female circumcision
- Honor killings
- Bull fighting
- "Canned" hunts
- Branding livestock
- Ear and tail "docking" on dogs (already banned in Britain and the EU)
- Capital punishment (already banned in most of the civilized world)

[Chris Johnson]

Thats a western perspective, dosn't stop executions etc

The Turtle could have been stunned and then butchered or it could have been trapped in a fishermans net to die a slow death or bitten by a shark.  Heck ever seen the documentries when the baby turtles have to run the gauntlet through the beach to reach the surf?  Then crabs are sure mean critters.

I don't condon it but looking at the death penalty (banned over here) then not veryones perfect by any means.

BTW I agree with all of your list and add Fox Hunting (vile upper class habit), badger baiting, cock fighting and ritual killing of livestock for crazy religious reasons.

[Ric Gillespie]

BTW I agree with all of your list and add Fox Hunting (vile upper class habit), badger baiting, cock fighting and ritual killing of livestock for crazy religious reasons.

(We're straying way off topic but...) I'm with you on those.  We still have Fox Hunting over here.  TIGHAR HQ is in southeastern Pennsylvania horse country.  There are a half dozen active hunts but they don't kill.  In fact, they usually end up chasing the same fox week after week (to the immense enjoyment of the fox).  Our local fox hunts are more dangerous to the riders than to the foxes.  Although an avid horseman, I'm not a member of any hunt, not because I disapprove of the activity but because I don't care to associate with the people who do it.  Oscar Wilde was right.  They're the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.

[JNev]

Say what you will about capital punishment, but it darn sure reduces recidivism... 

I do, however, wish the states-several would knock it off with the chemicals and move on to the firing squad.

[Ric Gillespie]

We now return to our discussion of Lambrecht's signs of recent habitation.

[Chris Johnson]

Have the Arundel structures been identified on the NZ Photos?  I ask because they would suggest 'recent habitation' if still visibe from the air.

[Ric Gillespie]

Have the Arundel structures been identified on the NZ Photos?

No. In fact, if I recall correctly, the ONLY reference to anybody seeing the Arundel structures were the Norwich City survivors in 1929. Even then they didn't look like "signs of recent habitation." 

[Bruce Thomas]

I keep wondering if the coco plantings, as they existed in 1937-1938, may have exhibited a pattern of planting that reflected the systematic hand of man, thus giving rise to an impression of "recent habitation" by the Navy fliers on July 9, 1937 (as opposed to "current habitation"). Even if, at the time of their flying over Gardner Island, the pilots and observers may not have had that impression or thought, maybe the encounter later in the day with the people on Hull and the coco harvesting there might have "planted" an impression that evolved when Lambrecht took pen in hand later to write his report about that day's flyovers.

From Lambrecht's report:

In appearance, Hull is much the same as Gardner, somewhat smaller perhaps, nevertheless, similar in shape and formation, the same lagoon, with the same vegetation and identical groves of coconut palms. The one difference … Hull was inhabited.

Do the 1938 photos brought back from New Zealand last year give any such impression of the coco palms on Gardner Island being planted systematically by the hand of man? But given Lambrecht's own words in his report, the question may be moot.