Surviving as a Baby Sea Turtle: The Perils of Reincarnation in the Ocean

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The discussion revolves around the challenges of reincarnation, particularly as a baby sea turtle, which faces numerous predators and environmental hazards shortly after hatching. Participants express a preference for reincarnating as more fortunate animals like otters, eagles, or kittens, highlighting the difficult and dangerous life of sea turtles. The conversation shifts to the topic of hypoallergenic cats, with skepticism about the breeding claims of a biotech company that produces them. The importance of genetic traits in breeding and the potential for manipulation is debated, alongside humorous takes on the less desirable reincarnation options. Overall, the thread combines humor with serious reflections on animal life and reincarnation.
tribdog
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What if you died and came back as something else. You know what would be the worst thing to come back as? A baby sea turtle. You see the gauntlet those poor guys have to navigate to get to the sea before the sun dries them up? I mean the trip looks hard enough even without all the evil creatures waiting to rip your flippers off. There are crabs that grab you and drag you, kicking and screaming, into their dens. Sea birds with wicked sharp beaks that swoop down and bite limbs off and flip you through the air. Vultures and Coati that are just salivating at the thought of ripping your shell off your back.
Their life is a nightmare. First you got to break outta your egg, only to find your self buried alive. So you dig your way out and face all the predators and you have to run from them. RUN?
1. you ever tried to run in sand before?
2. you ever tried to run with flippers?
3 you're a turtle.
If you can't come back as either an otter, an eagle or a dolphin I don't want anything to do with reincarnation.
 
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But they're so cute! At least to begin with anyway. ;)
 
and crunchy.
 
That made me sad. :frown:
 
I know, I couldn't find the remote so had to watch a documentary. Thought I'd bring everyone else down too.
 
Don't worry, if you come back, give me some prearranged sign, and I'll do you the favor of killing you. Repeatedly.

No trouble, really. :smile:
 
No worries. tribdog has been so bad, he's coming back as an intestinal parasite in a vulture. :smile: :smile: :smile: Ooh, that karma stuff is BAD!
 
really though, as a vulture's intestinal parasite i'd always have a place to stay, nice and warm. and I'd be doing exactly what makes intestinal parasites happy. in fact intestinal parasite sounds okay to intestinal parasites. if you know what I mean. running for your life across Hell Beach still sounds worse.
 
tribdog said:
really though, as a vulture's intestinal parasite i'd always have a place to stay, nice and warm. and I'd be doing exactly what makes intestinal parasites happy. in fact intestinal parasite sounds okay to intestinal parasites. if you know what I mean. running for your life across Hell Beach still sounds worse.
You've got a point. Nice warm digs, 3 hots and a cot...the scenery won't be great, but what the hell! You'll probably have vestigial eyes anyway. :rolleyes:
 
  • #10
plus every flatworm I've ever seen looks crosseyed.
 
  • #11
I was part of a group that walked about 6 miles of shore (near my hometown) for several nights each winter, looking for Olive Ridley nests (buried typically under a few feet of sand, so you had to look for turtle tracks to locate a nest) that we would then relocate to a hatchery. The Olive Ridley is an endangered/threatened species of sea turtle that nests in India (among a few other places), and has been suffering rapidly decreased mortality rates from urban encroachment.

The important thing with relocating a nest (typically containing many tens of eggs) is to replicate the depth of the original nest as accurately as possible, the reason for this being that the incubation temperature has a very strong effect on the sex of the turtle. Our little group saved several hundred turtles each season.

The "turtle walks" were fun!
 
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  • #12
I just heard something about that with aligators. one temp gave girls and just one degree higher meant boys. It was a really sharp boundry too I was suprised. There isn't a half and half boy/girl grey area. It's all one or the other.

Edit. by half and half boy/girl grey area I meant a temperature where the egg could produce either a boy or girl. I didn't mean a temperature where you get hermaphrodite alligators.
 
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  • #13
Been watching Animal Planet, huh? :biggrin:

The good news is if you don't survive the gauntlet, you can try again coming back as something else really quickly. I'm going to try to put my request in early to come back as a pet kitten...talk about living a great life! You play for a while, go take a nap, eat, go use the litter box, let someone else clean it up after you, take another nap, go play some more, get some treats, back to sleeping.
 
  • #14
cat hair makes my eyes itch. so kitten reincarnation would have some problems.
 
  • #15
tribdog said:
cat hair makes my eyes itch. so kitten reincarnation would have some problems.
:rolleyes: Yeah, I guess coming back as a cat if you have cat allergies might be a problem. Boy, you're really screwed on all the really good things to be reincarnated as. You're doomed to be a sea turtle, aren't you?
 
  • #16
Moonbear said:
Been watching Animal Planet, huh? :biggrin:
.
it's my damn job. the past two days have been devoted to computer work so I'm on the clock, sitting on the couch, I've got my monitor next to the TV and the keyboard on my lap, mouse on the cushion to my right, remote control to my left. It was to my left, I can't seem to find it at the moment. anyway, what I'm trying to say is I'm watching a lot of TV and I like to share what I learn. I should get started on that work stuff. I've just gotten paid for 16 hours of work and haven't opened the file yet. Not good.
 
  • #17
Moonbear said:
:rolleyes: Yeah, I guess coming back as a cat if you have cat allergies might be a problem. Boy, you're really screwed on all the really good things to be reincarnated as. You're doomed to be a sea turtle, aren't you?
I'm not allergic to turtle hair.
 
  • #18
I once had the good fortune to be swimming at a beach when baby sea turtles began to crawl out of the sand a few yards from our blankets. Trib has it right, even with us swimming along to try and protect them, the birds and every thing in the water was snapping them up like they were popcorn. Poor little guys. I think some made it out to sea.
 
  • #19
I don't for one bloody minute believe in reincarnation, but if it ever happens I'm coming back as the brass pole in a strip club.
 
  • #20
unfortunately it'll be the brass pole that's horizontal along the base of the bar where everyone rests their feet.
 
  • #21
tribdog said:
unfortunately it'll be the brass pole that's horizontal along the base of the bar where everyone rests their feet.

Or even worse the urinal at a strip club. Or worst of all, the floor of a sleazy porn theater or peep show booth (figure it out).
 
  • #22
tribdog said:
plus every flatworm I've ever seen looks crosseyed.
:smile:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/32/FlatwormZICA.png/800px-FlatwormZICA.png
 
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  • #23
Moonbear said:
:rolleyes: Yeah, I guess coming back as a cat if you have cat allergies might be a problem. Boy, you're really screwed on all the really good things to be reincarnated as. You're doomed to be a sea turtle, aren't you?

:smile: plus words to make this reply long enough because, it seems, just laughing isn't sufficient.
 
  • #24
I will come back as a seagull and...well, cr@p on people I don't like.
 
  • #26
brewnog said:
Trib, you could come back as a hypoallergenic cat instead.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5375900.stm
Aww, they're cute! Better than my next suggestion, which is that if he came back as a cat, we could shave him to avoid the fur irritating his eyes. :biggrin:
 
  • #27
brewnog said:
Trib, you could come back as a hypoallergenic cat instead.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5375900.stm
There is something fishy going on with those cats and that company. They are a biotech company, but swear they haven't done anything to these cats other than selective breeding. And that 1 out of 50,000 cats is a hypoallergenic cat naturally.
They now have enough of these cats that not only can they breed them and not have to worry about any inbreeding issues, but they can sell them as pets around the world. Either they tested at least 2 or 3 million cats to find a small pool of hypoallergenic cats to use as their first generation, and that just seems like a lot of cats for a small company to sift through. I know there are lots of cats in the world, but it's not like there are herds of cats numbering in the thousands out wandering the plains.
If this new breed of cat started with a first generation of just a couple animals then this company is amazing and we should put them in charge of white rhinos and mountain gorillas and california condors.
My guess is 1 in 50,000 is a made up number and it's closer to about 1 in 5,000 or there has been some secret genetic manipulation going on.
 
  • #28
tribdog said:
If this new breed of cat started with a first generation of just a couple animals then this company is amazing and we should put them in charge of white rhinos and mountain gorillas and california condors.
My guess is 1 in 50,000 is a made up number and it's closer to about 1 in 5,000 or there has been some secret genetic manipulation going on.
Cats have been domesticated since before the Pharaohs, they can reproduce quickly and in some places you can find hundreds of them out in the street or in animal care societies. Nothing fishy there.
 
  • #29
tribdog said:
or there has been some secret genetic manipulation going on.
I was going to use this opportunity to flag up bonsai kitten again but the site seems to have gone :cry:
 
  • #30
For tribdog: cats numbering in the thousands out wandering the plains.

"[MEDIA=youtube[/URL]
 
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  • #31
Yonoz said:
hundreds of them out in the street or in animal care societies. Nothing fishy there.
so you only need to go to a hundred thousand or so of those places and test all the cats, hope they haven't been spayed or neutered by then, negotiate the cat's purchase and then do the whole thing again to find another one to breed it with.
 
  • #32
tribdog said:
so you only need to go to a hundred thousand or so of those places and test all the cats, hope they haven't been spayed or neutered by then, negotiate the cat's purchase and then do the whole thing again to find another one to breed it with.
:rolleyes: Or you are a breeder of cats, and whenever you come across one with the mutation, you hang onto it and keep breeding it rather than sell it. You'd have to do some inbreeding first, then backcross with wild type, and then breed those offspring. Yeah, it would still be a lot of cats, but the same thing is done to breed all the mice used to select for specific mutations. People haven't always gone deliberatly looking for those mutations, but if they stumble across one with an interesting trait, they hang onto it and keep breeding it. It could have been dumb luck they wound up with a breeding pair that both shared the trait, so decided to run with it.
 
  • #33
What is the gestation period of a cat vs mouse, and it's okay to breed 1000s of mice, but do they have places to breed cats like that? I knew of a lady who had 17 cats and she got arrested.
 
  • #34
The gestation period for cats is approximately 63-65 days. The size of a litter averages three to five kittens, with the first litter usually smaller than subsequent litters. Kittens are weaned at between six and seven weeks, and cats normally reach sexual maturity at 4-10 months (females) and to 5-7 months (males).
You wouldn't need to go to hundreds of thousands of animal care societies - I suppose a few major cities would suffice. They don't have to find cats that are already "hypoallergenic", they can breed cats that only have the recessive genes, knowing a certain percentage of the offspring will be "hypoallergenic".
 
  • #35
tribdog said:
What is the gestation period of a cat vs mouse, and it's okay to breed 1000s of mice, but do they have places to breed cats like that?
Yes, the same places that breed mice also breed cats...not in the same room of course. :wink: They don't breed as many, but if you have them and the ability to do the genetic screening, why not...especially if a bunch of the staff working with them have cat allergies and are motivated to have an allergen-free breed! It'd be even better if they had an allergen-free mouse line...almost everyone who works with mice eventually develops an allergy to them.
 
  • #36
Moonbear said:
It'd be even better if they had an allergen-free mouse line...almost everyone who works with mice eventually develops an allergy to them.
I didn't know that, though we have the world's premiere mouse-breeding facility here in the state. That would be tough, to go to work every day with over a thousand sniffly, runny-eyed co-workers!

http://www.jax.org/about/jax_facts.html
 
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  • #37
turbo-1 said:
I didn't know that, though we have the world's premiere mouse-breeding facility here in the state. That would be tough, to go to work every day with over a thousand sniffly, runny-eyed co-workers!
Yep, it's really quite common. I try to avoid it by wearing surgical masks and gloves any time I'm in a room with mice so I don't get as much exposure to the allergens. That's part of why the air handling systems in lab animal facilities have the requirements they do...they have a fairly rapid exchange rate and all the animal rooms have to be maintained at a negative pressure relative to corridors so the air flow is from the corridor to the animal room rather than from the animal room out to the corridor. It keeps all the allergens contained. If you take mice (or any other animals) out of the animal quarters, you have to keep HEPA filter covers on their cages. That works both ways...to keep them from getting exposed to any pathogens in the environment outside the animal quarters, and to protect the people from the allergens.
 
  • #38
That's fascinating about developing allergies from working with mice.

Edited to add: that still doesn't help tribdog not become a seaturtle, though.
 
  • #39
GeorginaS said:
That's fascinating about developing allergies from working with mice.

Edited to add: that still doesn't help tribdog not become a seaturtle, though.
It does help him not become an allergenic sea-turtle.
 
  • #40
Yonoz said:
It does help him not become an allergenic sea-turtle.
Better than being a dung beetle or a candiru...
 

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