Loggerhead turtle

This July, in Sant Feliu Bay, we have two new developments: the disappearance of the beach bars and the appearance of a wooden fence placed in the middle of the beach to protect the eggs of a loggerhead turtle that came to lay its eggs just after the Sant Joan festival. Volunteers stand guard all day, in three-hour shifts. At night, there's a security guard. "We're not police!" a volunteer who came specifically from Tona tells me. Turtles keep coming, but people don't respect them: they film with their cell phones, flash their lights, shout, and use flashlights.Oh, a turtle, I'm going to take a picture."Then the turtle leaves and doesn't lay eggs." "Twenty years ago, turtles didn't come here," another volunteer tells me. "Now the water is warmer and turtles come here, and we need to spread the word so people know. A year or two ago, a man laid his towel on the beach and a baby turtle came out. The egg laying hadn't been detected."

The eggs are buried in the sand, but people keep coming to take selfies. A group of tourists approaches him. 101 Dalmatians, because the turtle laid exactly 101 eggs. There are messages in the book that say: "May you reach the water safely"; "Brave Dalmetes! Keep it up and keep coming back"; "Quelle new extraordinary! Bravo for your dévouement".

Everything is susceptible to being touristified. But, while we concentrate on this setting, a few meters to the west we are covering natural streams with concrete; a few meters to the north, in Cala Ametller, this year there are no buoys, so the boats still left from Sant Feliu, destroying the posido; from Bosch, we allow building on the first line of the coast. The attention paid to this poor animal makes us feel better after having put it in danger of extinction ourselves. We will easily make a claim for tourism, a tourism that will contribute to its disappearance and that of other species. chiquiparkA hug to the Terres de l'Ebre.