One Turtle at a time!
This morning I stepped out of the elevator of my apartment building on the garage floor to find an aquarium smelling up the place. Yes, right there on the ground directly in front of the elevator doors was this aquarium with about four inches of water. Upon further investigation I could see two San Antonio River turtles laying in the bottom of this horrible smelling water. I got a cardboard box and some plastic bags for my hands. When I returned I was picking the two turtles up one at a time, rescuing them from this watery grave, and placing them in the box.
I quickly jumped in my truck with turtles in tow, and transported them back to the river. As I drove and heard the turtles scratching at the sides of the box I was getting angry. Then I thought to myself, I was a child once, and kids will be kids. However, I then thought of the weight of this aquarium grave where the turtles were left to slowly die. No child brought this aquarium and placed it on the ground. Some parent in my building could not stand the smell in their apartment any longer and they thought they were teaching their child a lesson.
Some lesson I would say! Not only did the child not learn to keep the aquarium clean to care for another living creature. The parent failed again by not only not returning these creatures back to freedom, but by example that these lives aren't worth anything and can just be cast out to die.
The long and the short of this story. I got to the river, placed the box containing the two San Antonio river turtles on its side, and patiently waited for them to run to freedom like only a turtle can do. They are both now happily eating watercress and catching minnows once more in the city of "The River Walk."
So the moral to this story is why are we so worried about saving the planet if we aren't teaching the next generation that every life is precious?