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Dinesh

Dinesh club

Posted: 12 Jun 2022

Taken: 12 Jun 2022

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NATURALIST ON RIVER AMAZONS •
Henry Walter Bates •
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 Dinesh
Dinesh club
The destruction of turtle eggs every year by these proceedings is enormous. At least 6,000 jars, holding each three gallons of the oil, are exported annually from the Upper Amazonia and the Madeira to Para, where it is used for lighting, frying fish, and other purposes. It may be fairly estimated that 2,000 more jarful are consumed by the inhabitants of the villages on the river. Now, it takes at least twelve basketful of eggs, or about 6,000, by the wasteful process followed, to make one jar of oil. The total number of eggs annually destroyed amounts, therefore to 48,000,000. As each turtle lays about 120, it follows that yearly offspring of 400,000 turtles is thus annihilated. A vast number, nevertheless, remain undetected; and these would probably be sufficient to keep the turtle population of these rivers up to the mark, if the people did not follow the wasteful practice of laying in wait for the newly-hatched young as they descend in shoals to the water. These must have destroyed an immensely greater number before the European settlers began to appropriate the eggs than they do now. It is almost doubtful if this natural persecution did not act as effectively in checking the increase of the turtle as the artificial destruction now does. If we are to believe the tradition of the Indians however, it had not this result; for they say that formerly the waters teemed as thickly with turtles as the air does now with mosquitoes. The universal opinion of the settlers of the Upper Amazons is, that the turtle has very greatly decreased in numbers, and is still annually decreasing. ~ Page 303

NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS
23 months ago. Edited 23 months ago.

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