From the Inbox: Help Sea Turtles TODAY!

		Sea Turtles in the Frying Pan Oiled sea turtles like just this one may have been burned alive last week during attempts to contain the current Gulf oil disaster. Send an email. Tell U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and officials in the Obama administration that you oppose their 5-year offshore leasing plan that would encourage even MORE dangerous drilling off our coasts. Dear Friend, It’s a horrifying story: Last week, a Gulf ship captain reported seeing sea turtles burned alive in an attempt to keep oil off the Gulf coast. [2] BP – the company responsible for the Deepwater Horizon blowout and subsequent Gulf oil disaster – was trying to contain and prevent the oil from reaching coastal beaches and marshes by burning it at sea. Sadly, no one told the sea turtles – and it now appears that the lives of some threatened and endangered sea turtles (already hurt by the oil) may have been lost. Areas of oiled ocean are now being surveyed for sea turtles before burning, but that is only a stopgap measure. Help prevent the next drilling disaster. Tell the Obama administration that you oppose their 5-year offshore leasing proposal – a proposal that would encourage more dangerous drilling off the coasts of Florida, Alaska, North Carolina and other Gulf and Atlantic coastal states. The deadline for public comments is today (June 30th), soplease take action right now. So far, at least 429 threatened and endangered sea turtles have been confirmed dead since oil first began spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout. . However, many more sea turtles have likely been lost from the oil spill but not found… and many more would certainly die when baby turtles begin to hatch in the coming weeks. That is why agencies are collecting the eggs from the nests they know of for transfer to Atlantic Florida beaches that are free from oil. Sea turtles will die from ingesting too much oil. And like us, they can drown. Sea turtles need to surface to breathe, which is hard to do when the ocean’s surface is coated with toxic oil. The survival of sea turtles is precarious, and the human-caused loss of even one turtle is too much. We need to act now to help protect the beaches of North Carolina (another important nesting ground for sea turtles) and other states where dolphins, whales and birds rely on healthy coastal ecosystems to survive. Send your message now, and let the Obama administration know that you oppose dangerous new offshore drilling. But preventing new offshore drilling isn’t just about protecting threatened and endangered sea turtles. As the Gulf oil disaster clearly demonstrates, entire economies are at risk. Clean-up workers can become sick. And an entire marine and coastal wildlife system is at risk of being lost to Big Oil’s hubris. To send a loud, clear message to the Obama administration, we need just 800 more people from Alabama to take action before tomorrow, so please send your message right away, and then forward this message and/or share this action on Facebook and Twitter. For the Wild Ones, Jamie Rappaport ClarkExecutive Vice President Defenders of Wildlife P.S. As a former head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a career biologist and a mother, I can’t stress enough how important it is that we prevent more dangerous drilling off our coasts and that you send your message today.