The Top Fishing
Chapter 380 - 192: Hooking a Sea Turtle_2

Chapter 380: Chapter 192: Hooking a Sea Turtle_2

Sea turtles are extremely ill-adapted to cold water, so they only inhabit shallow waters at low latitudes, and never venture into the deep sea. They have two diving modes.

One is diving to sleep, where they can last a night with very low energy consumption.

The second is for foraging, where they can only burst into action for a few minutes, and if they don’t come up for air within that time, they would suffocate.... Compared to many other marine creatures, they are significantly less capable.

Unlike other sea turtles, however, the leatherback turtle is a bit different, as it seemingly has all its skill points allocated in reverse.

They lack a hard shell, but their flesh is exceptionally fatty, which ensures they can adapt to water temperatures between 5 and 38 degrees Celsius.

Moreover, leatherbacks are skilled divers, capable of diving up to 1,200 meters deep. Compared to other members of the sea turtle family, they also have a more varied diet.

Members of the sea turtle family primarily feed on seagrass and algae, with the Hawksbill Turtle’s main diet even consisting of highly toxic sponges. They are among the few creatures capable of digesting glass.

Having read this far, some people might wonder how this is a disadvantage for them?

Especially for the leatherback turtle, which can dive deep and withstand cold temperatures, isn’t that a good thing?

Actually, it’s not, and now let’s talk about the self-dooming routine they follow.

First comes reproduction, which is critical. Many might have seen documentaries, but the reality of sea turtles laying eggs is even more arduous.

Firstly, there’s the issue of age. Hawksbill Turtles, which are among the smaller in the sea turtle family, take 12—15 years to mature, while the larger leatherback turtles need about 30 years to mature.

And don’t think they lay eggs several times every year; actually, they lay eggs only a few times across several years. Here, it’s necessary to mention that Baidu Baike has written nonsense.

These turtles don’t lay eggs several times a year; laying eggs requires substantial physical effort, so they don’t lay all their eggs at one time. They need to return to the sea to rest and then come back to lay more eggs.

To many people, this seems like they are laying eggs multiple times, but in reality, it’s just once, and occurs only every few years.

During mass nesting, some turtles inadvertently dig up the eggs laid previously by other turtles. This causes half of them to be destroyed, and predators also eat many of the exposed eggs, killing off a significant number.

After hatching, when the baby turtles reach the sea, numerous predators attack them, even crabs can eat these tiny turtles. Out of every hundred baby turtles, it’s fortunate if even one survives to adulthood.

At this juncture, one might think, although it takes 30 years to mature, as the old saying goes: "Turtles live for thousands of years." One might guess these creatures live very long lives.

In truth, though people generally think they outlive human keepers, they don’t actually live as long as one might imagine.

For instance, leatherback turtles have an average lifespan of only 60 years, and are vigorous for only a few of those years. Therefore, a turtle will generally have only two or three offspring that survive, and many might not have any at all.

Despite this, they have lived for at least several tens of millions of years, having survived periods dominated by large marine reptiles, the sudden emergence of mosasaurs, and cleverly avoiding the underwater marauding by giant sharks and Mei’s Leviathan Whales, eventually making it to today.

But what they didn’t anticipate was the arrival of the Horror upright ape.

The number of sea turtles has begun to decline rapidly, primarily for these three reasons.

Firstly, there are fishing nets. As mentioned earlier, sea turtles are poor divers, barely managing 5 minutes of frantic swimming before they need to breathe, and if entangled, they simply suffocate and die....

Secondly, their food sources are at risk. A significant portion of a sea turtle’s diet consists of jellyfish, sponges, and mollusks, which are unfortunately similar in appearance to plastic bags, foam, and soda cans.

Furthermore, both leatherback turtles and other sea turtles have throats full of spines to prevent prey from escaping, leading to certain death if they ingest marine trash, as it cannot be expelled and ends up killing them in their stomachs.

Thirdly, there is human predation, and this is not to be unpatriotic, but it must be said that China is foremost among the culprits.

Using the leatherback turtle as an example, this type of turtle originally didn’t have nesting grounds domestically, and the few that wandered over were almost always killed.

Since such large sea turtles are something more than 90% of fishermen have never seen, they don’t realize these are protected animals and think they’ve encountered some millennium-old turtle spirit.

You say it’s a sea turtle, but it doesn’t have a shell, just like a turtle, its back is soft. Turtles themselves are known for nourishing yin and boosting yang, let alone one that grows so large.

Thus, all domestic news about the leatherback turtles revolved around ’millennium-old turtles nourishing yin and boosting yang,’ selling for seventy yuan per kilogram, caught by fishermen and sold out straight away.

A leatherback turtle can grow up to three to four hundred kilograms, and at seventy yuan per kilogram, that totals twenty to thirty thousand yuan. While that might not seem like much to Lin Yang, for many fishermen whose combined monthly income with their spouse is less than ten thousand yuan, this represents several months’ income, so it’s impossible not to be tempted.

Of course, this isn’t something that only happens domestically. People abroad might not consume sea turtles, but they do eat sea turtle eggs, and international nesting sites are mostly destroyed by human activity as well, and it doesn’t relate to any specific country.

In such circumstances, these creatures that have endured millions of years might not survive this century.

"Big guy, running into me, I don’t know if your luck is good or bad." While educating his live stream audience about the leatherback turtle, Lin Yang gently patted the giant creature’s head.

As the leatherback turtle is a state second-class protected animal and currently live-streamed, this sea turtle definitely needed to be released.

Even if he weren’t live-streaming, Lin Yang wouldn’t have killed it for its meat.

After gently stabilizing the large sea turtle, he carefully removed the fishhook from its mouth.

"Go on, don’t let me catch you again!" Lin Yang patted its back and said.

Without the restraint of the fishhook, the leatherback turtle instantly dived into the water and swam away in one direction.

After successfully rescuing the large sea turtle, Lin Yang climbed back onto the yacht, then went to take a shower in the bathroom and changed his clothes.

During this time, he also checked the rewards unlocked in the manual, which showed 2000 yuan, 20 points of experience and points, plus a special reward [Enhanced Fish Surveying].

The ’Fish Surveying’ skill was one he already possessed, which was somewhat useful in small rivers or small water bodies, but became useless in larger lakes or oceans.

Now that the skill was enhanced, Lin Yang could better survey the general distribution of various marine fish species in the sea using ’Fish Surveying.’

Although he still couldn’t pinpoint the exact location of underwater fish, he could still ascertain the general whereabouts of schools of fish or large fish underwater.

After spending a few minutes changing and understanding the rewards, Lin Yang also stepped out of the yacht.

He looked at the sky. Although it was already late, he decided to keep fishing for a while longer.

At this moment, Wang Feng and Li Xiaopeng were also fishing, and both had caught fish again. Needless to say, the resources in international waters were excellent; as soon as they threw the bait into the water, fish would quickly bite.

Seeing how enjoyable their fishing was, Lin Yang went to the side of the yacht, and using his newly enhanced ’Fish Surveying’ skill, he carefully surveyed the underwater fish distribution in the area.

At this time, he felt that even though he couldn’t achieve an X-ray vision effect, he seemed able to sense disturbances in that area of water, where there were schools of fish, even perhaps the size of the fish schools, somewhat like an artificial radar.

But stronger than a fish-finding radar, while machines can only detect schools of fish or very large fish, he could detect individual large fish, their specific positions and regions.

Looking down into the water, he felt there were fish everywhere, but the disturbances were minimal and hardly caught his attention.

Just as he was searching intently, a significant disturbance suddenly occurred in the water to his left front. As soon as this disturbance appeared, Lin Yang knew a big fish had emerged.

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