Tuesday 26 May 2015

Hawksbill Sea Turtle

After reading 'Plight of the Sea Turtle' by Jill Macgregor the Avengers described one of the turtles in the article the Hawksbill Sea turtle.



WALT - Describe a Hawksbill Turtle

Sea turtles were once a common site in the Pacific Islands. However the numbers of sea turtles have plummeted in recent times. One turtle that is currently threatened and endangered is the Hawksbill turtle.

Appearance - Risa/Samarah
The hawksbill turtle has a hawk shaped beak which gives it its name. On the shell it has striking colours like a jaguar’s skin. It is a one of the smaller turtle's it is 114 cm long and 68 kilograms in weight.

Diet - Nuha
Hawksbills are omnivorous and will eat mollusks, marine algae, crustaceans, sea urchins, fish, and jellyfish.  Sometimes they think that plastic bags are jellyfish and eat them. This causes the turtles to choke.

Breeding - Torres
Female sea turtles lay around a hundred eggs two or three times a season with only a small amount of hatchlings surviving.  Hardly any survive safely to the ocean because predators such as gulls, rats, dogs, pigs and crabs raid eggs and hatchlings for food.

Human Impact - Ansh
The Hawksbills turtles shells have been traditionally used to make jewellery, spears, tools, fish hooks and combs. Human impact has made these turtles threatened and endangered. That is why some people are starting a campaign to save these turtles.

Other threats - Kevin
Other threats to turtles include fishing nets, plastic rubbish and bags which cause the turtles to become tangled but their biggest threat is humans destroying their nesting sites by building hotels, marinas and seawalls.

In the future people may realise that they need to protect these endangered reptiles otherwise they will become extinct. If the turtle became extinct people would never have a chance to see these amazing sea animals in the wild and the food chain would be disturbed causing many more animals to die. How people can protect these creatures is by disposing of their rubbish correctly, not disturbing the areas where turtles feed or nest, never buying things made from turtle shell and saying no to plastic bags.

We believe that our description is extended abstract because we made a prediction about the future and linked several ideas.

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