While most turtles have webbed feet, some, such as the pig-nosed turtle, have true flippers, with the digits being fused into paddles and the claws being relatively small.
“An estimated 50,000 turtles are killed each year in Bali alone for the tourist trade,” says the newspaper, “and hundreds of thousands of turtle eggs are harvested for food.”
The gulf’s other residents and migratory visitors include whales, giant manta rays, leatherback sea turtles, sea lions, marlins, sailfish, and huge schools of tuna.
There too the turtle doves sat over the spring, or fluttered from bough to bough of the soft white pines over my head; or the red squirrel, coursing down the nearest bough, was particularly familiar and inquisitive.
Large turtles tend to swim less than smaller ones, and the very big species, such as alligator snapping turtles, hardly swim at all, preferring to walk along the bottom of the river or lake.