Turtle course

Nova Scotia fishing boats (in the summer!). If you have access to Facebook, you should check out this photo. THAT’s lobster fishing in winter. Brrr.

They’ve just started coming in — phone calls and texts asking about “getting the turtle course” from people planning to fish using pelagic longline gear this year.

Pelagic longline is a fishery for tuna and swordfish. But other species get caught in the gear, too, including endangered leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles.

The turtle course teaches fishermen how to disentangle and dehook the turtles they catch in the safest way possible. Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) requires that at least one person on every pelagic longline boat has taken the course.

I love talking with fishermen, and today I had three phone calls (and two texts—for the less chatty among us) about the turtle course.

I think the course is important because it helps fishermen give sea turtles the best chance of surviving. But it’s important for another reason, too.

It’s important because it reminds fishermen—and the rest of us—that you can be someone whose job it is to catch (and kill) fish and you can also be someone who cares deeply for the survival—the conservation—of all marine species.

Both of those things can be true at the same time.

What a game changer that is.