Donkeys and Dragons (and kitties) on Groundhog Day!
Or...hear The Dragon live on the radio Feb. 2

It's a "Crazy" Groundhog Day "Tuesday" at an all new time of 2 p.m. Eastern. Romance authors Robin D. Owens and Jacquie Rogers and fantasy author Sandy Lender join host Rowena Cherry to talk about their passions, the wild and stray animals that inspire the animal characters in their novels, and about the animal charities they support, including Every Creature Counts and Turtle Time.


Meet Robin D. Owens, author of Amazon's Best of 2008 Heart Fate; Jacquie Rogers, author of Down Home Ever Lovin' Mule Blues and Faery Special Romances; Host Rowena Cherry, author of Forced Mate, Mating Net, Insufficient Mating Material, and Knight's Fork; and catch up with our own Sandy Lender, author of Choices Meant for Gods, Choices Meant for Kings, and What Choices We Made.


To listen live, visit Internet Voices Radio right around 2 p.m. Tuesday afternoon. http://internetvoicesradio.com
The word ENTER gets you into the site.
To Listen Live (2.05 pm Tuesday, until 4.pm Eastern Time)
In the Black Box, click on "Listen Live"
Sign in (there's a box for that)
Listen and Enjoy
(If you like to multi-task, the site will have a streaming video presentation of the authors' charity-of-choice and book information for you to peruse while listening.)

We'll talk about dragons, donkeys, cats, saving sea turtles, how to rescue retiring rodeo horses, and some other cool things. We'll read snippets from our published or upcoming works and we'll entertain you with crazy talk. Because, you know, why else would we be on a show called Crazy Tuesdays? Woo-hoo!

"Some days, you just want the dragon to win."
Tags: Crazy Tuesday, Groundhog Day, PIVTR, Sandy Lender, Robin D. Owens, Jacquie Rogers, Rowena Cherry

Global Climate Change and Sea Turtle Conservation

Or…The Dragon wonders where the turtles will nest

As a participating blogger in Blog Action Day 2009, I get to write on whatever global climate change topic comes to mind. For me, that hits on conservation issues. Recycling and reusing products cuts down on fossil fuel consumption and original materials being removed from the environment. Easy equation.

Despite our collective best efforts, I’m pretty sure Planet Earth is doomed to repeat a cycle that some scientists believe she’s been going through since her birth. Ice age—thaw—ice age—thaw. You get the picture. Personally, I don’t think the earth is as old as those carbon-dating scientists claim it is, but that’s another argument for another day. What we have here is this idea that the earth has, for millions of years, gone through a cycle that humans would be pretty doggone arrogant to assume they can up-n-change. We should recognize that our industrial revolution has added to the rate of temperature-rise in the past few decades, but we shouldn’t lose track of the fact that the temperature-rise was in effect because it’s part of the planet’s lifecycle.

So let’s say ice melts, polar bears drown, and waters rise. Where do the sea turtles go to build their nests? I’m assuming Florida will go under (as mentioned in my short story info posted below/earlier this week). Various islands where sea turtles nest will go under. Because sea turtles are near and dear to my heart, this is where my worries rest. In the images posted today, you see a couple of hatchling loggerhead sea turtles making a dry-run for the Gulf of Mexico. We waited until dark to do the real thing so fish out in the water were less likely to snack on them. But these little turtles (if they’re girls and if they survive the insane odds stacked against them) will return to Bonita Beach in 20 or so years looking for a place to lay their eggs. What will they find? What will their offspring find 20 years after that?

(For information on sea turtle nesting behavior and hatchling releases, please visit www.turtletime.org.)

“Some days, you just want the dragon to win.”

Tags: Blog Action Day, global climate change, polar bears, sea turtles, Gulf of Mexico

Sea Turtle Indecision

Or...The Dragon found turtle tracks this morning

In fabulous news, I found sea turtle tracks during my patrol this morning. What's bizarre is I found three. Two were obviously false crawls; quick turn-arounds where the turtle came up on shore, did a fast pivot, and went back out to the Gulf. The third, pictured here, looks like the disturbed sand of a nesting. Woo-hoo!

As I left the beach, I ran into a fellow Turtle Time volunteer (Hi, Chris!) who had two false crawls in her zones. We checked the first one out and it looks like her nightly visitor had a wider plastron than mine, so we may have had two turtle ladies seeking good nesting spots last night. How wonderful is that?

I posted a few extra pictures on my facebook page. You can be a fan of Fantasy Author Sandy Lender there.

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."

Tags: sea turtles, fantasy author, Sandy Lender

Plastic is So Bad

Or...The Dragon saves a duck from certain plastic doom

I leapt out of the car, startling the gentleman driving. Luckily, he’d stopped at a stop sign, but he wasn’t accustomed to me shouting, “oh my God, stop, stop the car” while flinging the seat belt around and exiting the car as if it were on fire. The duck I approached seemed similarly startled. It looked at me as if deciding, “human coming this way; do I fight or fly?” The poor thing stood next to one of those plastic six-pack rings. It was like an advertisement for pollution. I could hear Sigourney Weaver’s voice rattling off a statistic about pollution and bird deaths in my head. I could also hear the duck hissing at me—a series of deep-throat threatening hisses like a psychotic goose. I spoke kindly to him while I grabbed up the soda rings and he waddled warily to the side, keeping those brilliant shiny eyes on me the whole time. I got back in the car and Joe had to ask “What is wrong with you?”

Ooo. A chance to educate.

See, I hate to find plastic crap lying around. I live pretty darn close to the Gulf of Mexico so it’s doubly annoying to find plastic crap lying around. Sea turtles eat plastic bags that look like jellyfish and suddenly find themselves choking to death or too full to eat anything nutritious. Birds and small creatures get caught in these ridiculous soda rings that people are too busy to cut before tossing in the trash. I could go on for a looooong time on this diatribe. Instead, I’ll direct you to this excellent article from Monterey Bay Aquarium. If you have trouble with that link, try http://tinyurl.com/PlasticInOcean.

“Some days, I just want the dragon to win.”
Tags: pollution, sea turtles, duck, plastic rings, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Gulf of Mexico

Who is Sandy Lender?
Or…The Dragon welcomes new folks to the insanity of a fantasy author’s blog

From June 1 to July 3 I’m “doing” an online book tour. Regular visitors know I’ve done two of these in the past. Remember that two-month stretch in the summer of 2007? Eegads. When What Choices We Made was released back in November, I did a much more sensible two-week online tour, but spent the second week of the tour in a hospital room that had no Internet access. (To be honest, I was so out of it that my posts would have been pretty pathetic that week anyway.)

This month things are different! I’m totally healthy and champing at the bit to do some extra promotion for Choices Meant for Gods, my fabulous fantasy novel available from ArcheBooks Publishing, at Amazon.com, at Barnes & Noble, or anywhere fine and fabulous fantasy is sold.

Considering I’m promoting the whole month as “Sandy’s guest starring at everyone else’s blogs,” I decided to post my tour stops here at Today the Dragon Wins (above) and leave this blog mostly dormant for the duration. But that leaves visitors a little “wanting,” right? Hence this explanatory post and “unofficial” bio.

I’m Sandy Lender, fantasy author and magazine editor. The magazine editing is the day job that pays the bills. As surprising as this is going to sound, writing isn’t my whole life. I spend Saturday mornings protecting sea turtles. I live in Southwest Florida where I serve in the Turtle Time non-profit group helping track and protect these lovely creatures. Pictures from the section of beach I patrol speckle this blog and Nigel’s.

I’m also obsessed with Duran Duran. You’ll find me at their July 11 show in California with my friends Christine and Jennine. Pictures of me with the hhhhhot John Taylor on different occasions appear on my MySpace page.

Taking care of pets also takes some of my time. I have a beautiful sun conure named Petri (after the baby pterodactyl in The Land Before Time) and a gorgeous new Timneh African Grey named Mouse (because she squeaks). I also have a 21-year-old turtle and a pancake tortoise whose age escapes me right now.

My reading interests include fantasy, of course, but start with Charlotte Bronte. I consider her a genius when it comes to dialogue and suspense. I can’t open one of her books to “check something” without getting pulled in. She captures me because she’s a master of literature. Her sisters are equally talented, but there’s something about Charlotte that appeals to me in a way I can’t explain in a simple “section” of a blog post.

I like to have green plants around me and I’m happiest when I sit among the birds and the plants with some chocolate cookies for me, crackers for the birds, and my laptop for a writing session. Of course, birds like to have attention on themselves, not the laptop…

If you’d like more information about me (although I’m not sure what else is interesting), I’ve got web pages all over the Internet. Brief list below. I encourage you to follow me on Twitter for infrequent but usually insane updates on bizarre stuff that happens to me. All of these links take you away from this page, so you’ll have to hit the “back” button to come back to the list. (Because it’s that fabulous of a list!) Personally, I recommend the Twitter and DragonDiscussions links for joining non-spam stuff. Then, OF COURSE, I recommend the first three links so you can order my books. Bwuahahahahaha.

http://tinyurl.com/CMFGamazon
http://tinyurl.com/WCWMamazon
ArcheBooks Publishing (discount at the publisher’s site)
http://twitter.com/sandylender
FiledBy (where you can see my trailers)
Ning
Dragon Discussions (where you can join the group)
Author Island
Good Reads
Red Room
Shelfari
AuthorsDen
Suspense Magazine
LinkedIn
BookTour
MySpace
http://tinyurl.com/WCWMvideo (please leave a nice comment for the producer!)
http://tinyurl.com/CMFKvideo (please leave a nice comment for the producer!)
http://tinyurl.com/Dragonvideo (please leave a nice comment for the producer!)

I know that’s a lot of crap to fling at you all at once, but, in a nutshell, that’s Fantasy Author Sandy Lender. Thank you for stopping in at Today the Dragon Wins, and thank you for reading all this. There’s more, as you can see by the extensive archive list at left. Enjoy your visit!

“Some days, I just want the dragon to win.”
Tags: fantasy author, Sandy Lender, online book tour, Duran Duran, sea turtle, Charlotte Bronte

I Found the First Sea Turtle Nest of the Season on Bonita Beach

Or...The Dragon feels validated as a human today

A Loggerhead sea turtle made my day. She came up on shore on Bonita Beach, in Zone 11, some time during the night, trudged clear up to the grassy area, made a nest, laid some eggs, covered it with plenty of fluffy sand, and trudged back to the Gulf like a pro. What's totally cool about this is she's the first to do so along Bonita Beach this year and she did it in a zone I patrol on a night I'd find the nest.

Woo-hoo!

Here are pictures to commemorate the coo-el event. The image that looks like a set of tractor trailer marks is the picture of her "crawl." If you're ever walking on the beach and you see a set of these, you know you're witnessing something great. You're seeing evidence that an endangered or threatened species has been at work. If you follow the tracks up the beach, you'll come to an area of greatly disturbed sand. Under all that disturbance are 90 or so tiny little gestating reptile lives. How cool is that?

Other Turtle Time volunteers and I will be keeping an eye on this nest throughout the summer. Within the next 70 days, I'll report on a hatching event for you!

As a side note, a reporter from The News Press called me to ask "How excited were you to find the first nest?" Sigh. I could talk ad nauseum about fibropapilloma tumors killing our turtle population at large and five years of sea turtle patrol and she asks me: "How excited were you to find the first nest?" So I answered her questions very politely. There wasn't really an opportunity to say I include sea turtles in my writing or to tell her that I'm a local author. Bummer. But, you know, today was about promoting sea turtle conservation, not pimping Sandy Lender's writing career. :)

Now I must go because I need to call everyone I know.

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."

Tags: sea turtle, Loggerhead, Bonita Beach, fibropapilloma, Sandy Lender

Writing to Our Representatives on Earth Day
Or…The Dragon thinks we should protect our pets and civil liberties from HR669 this Earth Day

(I’ll just warn you now—this one’s a long one and it'll rile you up.)

At an Earth Day Festival in Kansas City several years ago, a vendor pointed at my t-shirt and said, “Turtle Island? Where’s that?” I responded, “You’re standing on it. Our earth belongs to the turtles.” He could dig that. We chatted a while and, for some reason, he asked what year I was born. I’ll share because I don’t think it’s a big deal. 1970. He was elated and told me that was the year of the first Earth Day.

I felt honored.

I’m not the most devoted environmentalist you’ll find. I use too much hair spray now that my hair is growing back in. (I’m not saying that a hole is opening in the ozone layer directly above Southwest Florida because of me; but, trust me, my hair spray consumption has increased now that I actually have hair to tame into place.) And I have those days when I take long showers (we fantasy authors have stress, you know) even though I know I should conserve water. But I always always always turn the water off while I brush my teeth. I’m not totally irresponsible. :)

The one environmentalist bent I go nuts over is the sea turtles. I have this insane love for the sea turtles. It started because my family adopted a fresh-water turtle when I was a teenager in Missouri. My love of the shelled reptiles started then and I’ve been interested in all manner of turtle and habitat conservation since.

A couple summers ago, during nesting patrol for Turtle Time, I got to rescue a baby sea turtle who had strayed far away from his nest—and the gulf waters—due to light disorientation. I have the sea turtle conservation license plate. Thursday of last week, I took a personal day from work so I could drive up to Port Charlotte to attend this year’s sea turtle seminar in preparation for nesting patrols. I only buy ice cream from Turtle Mountain (look for the Purely Decadent brand in the organic/healthy section of the dairy case) because they provide funds to the Sea Turtle Restoration Project (STRP). When my first fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods was released, I ordered a ton of canvas bags (as opposed to evil plastic bags) with the book cover for promotional efforts because I wanted to hand out an environmentally responsible item that wouldn’t end up in our ocean/gulf waters where sea turtles would mistake it for a yummy jelly fish meal. I even have a baby sea turtle flitting away to freedom, juxtaposed against the female lead in Enara’s Choice in the chapbook What Choices We Made. I just adore these precious creatures and feel overwhelmed by the task before the sea turtle conservationists fighting to protect them.

But today is Earth Day, and there are threatened and endangered species all over the globe who deserve remembrance. Not only are sea turtles finding fewer nesting beaches and increased international fishery trawlers, but polar bears are crashing through thinning ice, 11-day-old harp seals are being clubbed to death or skinned alive so someone can have a fancy hat, fish are bumping into destructive species that were introduced by well-meaning but short-sighted wildlife management officials, and the list goes on.

Now, I would like you to notice that I mentioned “destructive species introduction” in that last paragraph. There are entities in the U.S. government that have tried controlling wild populations by introducing nonnative species to U.S. ecosystems. These experiments have not always gone well. People neglecting to check cargo on island-bound planes also allowed nonnative species to sneak into unsuspecting ecosystems. (Do a google search for “invasive species” and Guam. Holy cow.) In answer to this man-made problem, a representative has introduced a bill in the House of Representatives—H.R. 669—that is, on the surface, meant to keep us from compounding the problems that started by accident.

H.R. 669, The Nonnative Wildlife Invasion Prevention Act, does a bit more. It is designed, among other things, to allow a government entity to make a list of what pets U.S. citizens are not allowed to keep. I think the premise is designed to prevent the few irresponsible pet owners from releasing nonnative animals into sensitive U.S. ecosystems. I’m not sure if this would stem the tide of Burmese Pythons encroaching on alligator feeding grounds in the Everglades or of feral cats eating pretty songbirds all over the country or not. Two things I am sure about with this bill: It stomps on our civil liberties and it results in animal deaths.

Under H.R. 669, if an animal is not native to the United States, it won’t be allowed (unless it's a cow or some type of domesticated livestock used in farming). If you already own a nonnative animal, such as a parrot, a lizard, a gerbil, a guinea pig, a hamster, etc., you may keep the animal, but you will not be allowed to breed it with another animal and you will not be allowed to carry it across state lines. My lovely Petri is a sun conure, and, although his parents and grandparents were bred here in the United States, his species is originally from South America, thus he is considered nonnative. Under H.R. 669, a person will not be allowed to transfer her pet's ownership to another individual. So if my employer (headquartered in another state) were to order me to move to that state as a condition of my continued employment, I could not give (or sell) my companion parrot before moving. In the event of a career change or family emergency, a person will not be "allowed" to give away their bird or tortoise or child's hamster to a family friend before leaving it behind in an interstate move.

The pet has to be “destroyed”. “Destroyed” is a polite word for “murdered”.

If H.R. 669 is passed, the U.S. government will dictate which animals U.S. citizens are allowed to keep as pets/family members, and will dictate when you have to kill them. (Unless you already have all the pets you want and are living in the state where you intend to retire and die. And I guess your pet dies with you if you can’t transfer ownership to anyone upon your death…)

What a sad thing to contemplate on Earth Day. Our representatives in the House of Representatives are supposed to start discussing this bill tomorrow, the 23rd. I’ve already sent letters to my representatives stating that I’d like them to speak against this bill. While I like the idea of preventing nonnative species from establishing populations in the wild in the United States, I think the way to control that is not by destroying the pet industry and killing people’s pets, but by finding better ways to keep the small percentage of irresponsible owners from releasing their pets and by keeping wildlife officials from doing any more “creative species control”.

I think Earth Day should be a day where we come up with good, positive, creative ways to protect and conserve life; not to kill the animals that responsible owners love and care for. I think Earth Day is a great day to tell a representative that H.R. 669 is a bad idea. If you would like to contact your representatives, but aren’t sure of their names or e-mail addresses, visit this site for quick-and-easy access. Remember, HR669 is The Nonnative Wildlife Invasion Prevention Act and it will put limits on pet ownership, will gut the pet industry, but, most importantly, will endanger animals’ lives.

“Some days, I just want the dragon to win.”
Tags: Earth Day, sea turtles, House of Representatives, nonnative species, H.R. 669, HR669, Nonnative Wildlife Invasion Prevention Act, species control, pet industry, companion parrot

Mother's Day Bears

Or...sea turtles don't stick around for birth, but polar bears will as long as we keep them alive

What on earth is this post doing on a writer's blog? We'll discuss bears and Mother's Day during the Internet Voices Radio show tomorrow night, and it's called inspiration. Sea turtles and dragons have the interesting relationship of belonging to the reptile family. Maybe that's why I like them both so much. Polar bears and baby harp seals are white, fluffy, cute, and hunted to endangerment. Maybe that's why I care so much about them. Put these families together and...and...well, the turtles would probably swim away at a high rate of speed while the dragons ate everything else. Not so good.

But here's the point. There's fodder for resolving writer's block in this post. Did you know that polar bear moms keep their cubs with them for more than two years? So if your latest opus (yes, that's a penguin joke for you children of the '80s) involves shapeshifters, your werepolar-bear would, naturally, keep its offspring around for training and nurturing purposes. At least for two years. You don't get that kind of action out of a dragon, now do you? Not at all. Deposit eggs. Fly away.

The same reptile abandonment happens with the sea turtles. I know. I patrol for sea turtle nests here along the Gulf Coast every weekend during nesting season, and, let me tell you, mommy doesn't hang around to watch the little hatchlings do their thing. In fact, we crazed conservationists do that. (It's like free babysitting service. We'll even chase away ghost crabs* and corral the babies that get disoriented by porch lights when hatching to make sure they get to the water. Mrs. Turtle doesn't have to do a thing...once she gets past all the trash and lawn chairs that litter her nesting ground.)

Luckily, the baby harp seals, polar bears, sea turtles, and, yes, even dragons, have advocates looking out for them. The bears seem to have an uphill battle, though. The Bush Administration proposed protections for them under the Endangered Species Act back in January 2007, but that kind of legislation gets stalled, you know. (And there's more fodder to stamp out writer's block.)

Whether you "believe in" Global Warming or not, melted areas that used to provide land mass for polar bear habitats force dwindling populations to move. It's a fact, Jack. Take a trip up to Alaska and look if you don't believe it. (It's kind of like "not believing" in Red Tide. Walk with me along the Gulf Coast some morning and revel in the aroma of the piles of reddened - it's literally red - trash, seaweed and dead, rotting fish that have washed up.)

The U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service work together to figure out what's going on with the polar bear populations. Yes, they're declining, but why? Folks want the bear listed as "threatened" with the ESA, and that sounds fine by me. But are we conservationists willing to compromise and allow oil drilling in part of their habitat? Are we willing to move some of the bears? Are we willing to spend money to track sea ice trends? Criminy, how much time will we spend on research and arguing when what we need to do is just reach a compromise that saves some bears? There aren't that many left...

All of this makes great story-writing material. The plight of the adorable baby harp seal who rolls and flops innocently across the ice toward a big, tall human that she doesn't know, that she doesn't know to fear, that she doesn't know is going to crush her skull mercilessly with a club until her blood and brain matter splatter across the virgin-white snow in a shock of red and dark, horrid mess; the plight of the majestic sea turtle who labors at trudging up the beach to dig a hole for her eggs only to have the nest ravaged by humans who think some property in the rare turtle yolk will help them "get it up" in bed; and the plight of the polar bear mom who finds a quiet cold den to birth her two baby cubs that she'll feed and nurture and care for and teach until one day she doesn't return from hunting because someone shot and killed her are stories we writers should feel compelled to tell.

Because one day...they may be considered fiction.

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."

* The photo is of one of hundreds of ghost crab holes I saw during my sea turtle patrol this morning. Notice how the little guy flings the sand out around the mouth of the hole as he tunnels.

Tags: Mother's Day, sea turtles, polar bears, Internet Voices Radio, dragons, harp seals, writer's block, Gulf Coast, ghost crabs, porch lights, nesting ground, Bush Administration, Endangered Species Act, Global Warming, dwindling populations, red tide, U.S. Geological Survey, Fish and Wildlife

Turtle Mountain Dragons
Or…saving sea turtles with your frozen writing choices

You know how I love the turtles. Imagine my absolute delight when I found a company called Turtle Mountain that sells…

Get ready for it…

Green with brown dots ice cream (non-dairy, no less!) with proceeds going to support the Sea Turtle Restoration Project. Visit www.turtlemountain.com.

I nearly fell over in the grocery aisle.

Now, here's the scoop (pun intended). I think you have to shop at a healthy grocery store, like Wild Oats or Sun Splash or some such place that stocks organic products. Get thee to one of these places! Go to the frozen foods section. It will be small because people who eat healthy foods like this don't eat a lot of pre-packaged crap. Look for tan/brown containers with a product line called Purely Decadent. How's THAT for a product name, eh? Now, if you're allergic to soy, this is a bad experiment. Some forms of soy trigger migraine in me, but I had to try it out. Come on…Turtle Mountain? I was willing to experiment with the mint chocolate chip (no migraine!). And the tres cool part? Their mint chocolate chip is WHITE with brown dots instead of green because they use real mint. Color me turtley happy.

So how could I possibly turn my petition to other writers to purchase yummy Turtle Mountain frozen desserts into a writing-related post on Today the Dragon Wins? Watch this: WRITE back to me in the comments field telling me what your fave ice cream flavor is. But I don't just want to know what it is. Oh no. That would be too easy. You're a writer. Give me a reason, too. Bwuahahaha. And it can be simple and truthful. Or you can get creative and make something up. Like…I don't know…your favorite ice cream flavor is rocky road because you once met a llama on a rocky road and it saved your pet ferret from slipping down into a cleft in the rocks, which would have sent it careening off into a 90-foot drop through open space toward certain death. You know. Something like that.

Or, your favorite ice cream flavor is cherry because you're a Duran Duran fan.

Or, your favorite ice cream flavor could be anything topped with hot fudge, like the color of Nigel Taiman's eyes in the epic fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods, by yours truly, Sandy Lender, now available at any Barnes & Noble, Borders, or http://www.amazon.com/Choices-Meant-Gods-Sandy-Lender/dp/1595071652/ref=dp_return_1/104-9089752-5140754?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books&qid=1175821346&sr=8-1. Yes, you can laugh at how cheesy that little marketing move was…

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."

Tags: Choices Meant for Gods, Sandy Lender, fantasy novel, Nigel Taiman, Turtle Mountain, Sea Turtle Restoration Project, Duran Duran, Today the Dragon Wins

Writers Guide
Using Heartbreak to Enhance Your Writing Session

As the author of Choices Meant for Gods, I used emotional moments in my life to enhance some of my writing sessions. There's nothing like a good bit of turmoil in an author's life to set the muse afire. So I'm using this morning's heartbreaking moment on Bonita Beach to guide me not only in writing today's Writers Guide post for all of you, but in getting all of you to write something emotional, something pivotal, perhaps, in your works-in-progress. So read the following and think of an emotional experience you can use in your writing session today. Then share! Use the comment field to share either the emotional experience you'll call upon or the result with other visitors to The Dragon.

You see, today was the first day of turtle patrol for me. Sea turtle nesting season begins along our nation's coasts May 1 and hatching season ends around the end of October. So from now until the end of October, every Saturday morning will find me on the beach wandering the zones that are my responsibility, looking for evidence of nesting and, later in the season, hatching activity.

This morning, I found a dead sea turtle washed up on our shore.

There she lay, waiting for someone to figure out why such a beautiful young creature was never going to lay eggs. Was her stomach full of cigarette butts that have washed off the roadways and sidewalks into the culverts and down to the Gulf, thus filling her up until she had no desire to eat nourishing food? Maybe her stomach is full of plastic bags that looked to her like yummy jelly fish. She could have become sick from the pollution-spiked red tide infecting the Gulf. She could have been caught and drowned in a shrimper's net and dumped back over the side of his boat before he could be brought up on charges for killing an endangered species.

She's too small to have died of old age. Green turtles grow a bit larger and get far more barnacles than this young lady had. She should have lived many more years. She should have visited her natal beach for years and years and years to come, laying 100 to 130 eggs each time so that her tiny babies set out in the effort to repopulate our oceans with these majestic turtles that are dying off at a rate that surprises and alarms conservationists around the globe.

Instead...I found her washed up on our shore.

"Some days, I just want the turtles to win."

Tags: Choices Meant for Gods, sea turtles, green turtles, Writers Guide, nesting season