Island Moon A 15August 12, 2011

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Happy Hour Tuesday - Friday 4-6Featuring a new appetizer menu

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14701 SPID , On Padre Island 361-949-2224

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Fourth Green Turtle Nest Found At National Seashore

By Donna J. Shaver, Ph.D.Division of Sea Turtle Science and RecoveryNational Park ServicePadre Island National Seashoree-mail: Donna_Shaver@nps.govFour green sea turtle nests have been found on the Tex-

as coast so far this year, all at Padre Island National Sea-shore. They were located on July 11, July 23, August 2, and August 5. Green turtles are federally and state listed as threatened in Texas. The eggs from all four nests were collected and transported to the National Seashore’s in-cubation facility for protected care. They will hatch and the hatchlings will be ready for release in August and September. Green turtle nests have been located on the Texas coast as late as mid-September, so hopefully more green turtle nests will be found this year.

Green turtles typically nest at night. Some of the nests were found by our morning beach patrols. Others were reported by visitors who were on the beach at night or early in the morning and spotted the nesting turtles or their tracks before our patrollers arrived. Thank you to the people that provided the reports of the track sites and photographs of the nesting turtles. Nests were found at about half of the green turtle track sites found this year. At the other half the turtles emerged but failed to nest due to disturbance or something else that they did not like at the sites. This is in contrast to the situation for Kemp’s Ridleys, where a nest was discovered at nearly every track location found.

More sea turtle nests have been found at Padre Island National Seashore than at any other beach in Texas, and the National Seashore is the only location in Texas where nests from all � ve sea turtle species that occur in the Gulf of Mexico have been recorded. All green tur-

tle nests documented in Texas have been at the National Sea-shore except for two that were found just south of the National Seashore, on South Padre Island.

Kemp’s Ridley and loggerhead nests have been found state-wide, with the largest numbers at the National Sea-shore. Only one leatherback and one hawksbill nests have been recorded in Texas in recent years, at the Na-tional Seashore.

The nesting season for the green turtle is later than for the Kemp’s Ridley. Although no green turtle eggs found

this year have hatched, most of the Kemp’s Rid-ley eggs have. Twenty-nine public releases of Kemp’s Ridley hatchlings have been held at Padre Is-land National Seashore so far this year. This is more than during any other year since we began hold-ing public releases in the 1970s. Thousands of peo-ple have attended this year, with about 100-500 people at each release. Many peo-ple came to our area just to witness a hatchling release. We thank the many people that helped run the releas-es that were enjoyed by so many people. Thank you to the more than 100 vol-unteers that donated many hours to help � nd the nests and release the tiny turtles. Some volunteers even aid-

ed with releases that occurred impromptu, when the tur-tles went into their frenzy and had to be released imme-diately in the middle of the night.

As of August 5, eggs from four Kemp’s Ridley nests re-main under our care in the National Seashore’s incuba-tion facility. The last of them will hatch and be released in mid-August. We hope to hold one more public hatch-ling release this year, during the week of August 14, for hatchlings from one of the last nests found this year. However, it can be dif� cult to predict release dates and times when only a few nests are hatching, so it remains to be seen whether we will be able to hold another pub-lic release this year. We will give the latest information about the status of release plans on our Hatchling Hot-line at 361-949-7163 and on our Facebook page entitled Padre Island NS Division of Sea Turtle Science and Re-covery.

A ‘Made in America’ Religion The Mormon faith born and bred here and then

taken abroadStory by Mary Craft

The Mormon religion is known most for its’ history of polygamy, in fact, that’s all about Mormon’s that

many know. My recent trip to Salt Lake City made me want to learn more about it. It is a fairly recent religion having been started by their prophet Joseph Smith who as a teen was visited by God and Jesus Christ. Joseph wrote in the Book of Mormon, “My object in going to in-quire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right that I might know which to join. I was answered that I must join none for they were all wrong.” Joseph

also wrote that he was told he would bring back the true church of Jesus Christ. Three years later, in 1827, an an-gel messenger from God came to him. Joseph was told where gold tablets with scriptures were buried. No one had ever seen the tablets not even his � rst (prima-ry) wife although she said she did feel them under a cloth. They were returned to the angel Moroni after Joseph translated them to English from the ancient language. It became the Book of Mormon in 1830. The book besides having scriptures also describes the ancient inhabitants of the Ameri-can Continent. It was written while he lived in western New York as a treasure seeker. During this time there was the Second Great Awakening which was a revivalist movement prominent in this area as in other rural areas. Smith soon had a following of family and friends and they moved to Kirtland, Ohio near Cleveland.

They stayed there only a few years because those around them mistrusted their ways and the pro-nouncement that theirs was the only true Chris-tian religion. In fact, the persecution was to the extent that Joseph Smith was tarred and feath-ered. The polygamy that was mostly to blame started when God’s messenger again came to Jo-seph. “An angel with a drawn sword stood by me and told me if I did not establish that principle upon the earth I would lose my position and my life.” The angel with the sword also declared that if the pri-mary wife disagreed ‘she shall be destroyed’. The group left for Missouri (which they called Zion) to join other Mormons adding to their numbers along the way. Jo-seph tried to keep his plural marriages under wraps but one of his former church elders, William Law, exposed him. Law was upset by the polygamy and got a printing

press and started the newspaper “The Expositor”. In the � rst issue he wrote about Smith’s wives. Smith when he learned of this had Law’s printer, of� ce and building de-stroyed. Smith and his brother were put to jail for this ac-tion and were killed there by a mob. Joseph was 38 and had 33 wives ages 14-56, eleven were married with liv-ing husbands.

Go west young manBrigham Young became the second prophet and he and

his missionaries further expanded the church. The group was pressured again with hostile groups and forced again to move on. Brigham did not know where he was taking his � ock just that they would go west to the Rockies. He experienced a revelation when he saw the Salt Lake des-ert valley surrounded by mountains. The � rst harvest of wheat and vegetables was a questionable one since it was on untried soil. They had brought enough rations to make it through the winter but just barely. When spring arrived the thousands of acres of crops did well. Unfortunately swarms of crickets arrived in May and were destroying all the crops. They thought they had to pick up stakes and move onward when seagulls arrived and feasted on the crickets. To Mormons this demonstrated a miracle but to others it was the annual migration of the California seagulls to the Great Salt Lake. This seagull is the state bird and a monument was erected in 1913 depicting two birds eating crickets. It is located in the Temple Square and the piece was done by Brigham’s grandson.

Here a Mormon, There a Mormon, Everywhere a Mormon

Today there are six million Mormons in the States and 14 million worldwide because an important part of the faith is to spread the word. The � rst foreign mission was to England in 1837. Missions are normally done when sons graduate high school. Two travel together for two years to convert others. These are who you see in white shirts and ties on bicycles. They lead a strict life with no

TV, no internet, no smoking, no drinking and no interac-tion with the opposite sex. They wake early, read scrip-tures for two hours and then spend all day on the mission going to bed early to prepare for the next day. Mitt Rom-ney went to France in 1966 for traditional missionary work which his father did before him. He was there for 30 months and more than 200 baptisms were performed during his time there which was considered alot for this society that loves their wine.

Polygamy was ended in 1890 some say due to a revela-tion stating one must obey the law of the land they live in. Others say the government threatened to take church assets and not allow Utah to become a state which it did in 1896. There are a small minority of about 100,000 Fundamental Church of Latter Day Saints that stick to the original beliefs and these are the ones you see on the reality shows and read about in the news.

The last revelation received was in 1978 when it was re-vealed that black men could be ordained into the priest-hood. In the Church of Latter Day Saints priests are any male heads of household. There are now 500,000 black Mormons most in Brazil, the Caribbean and West Africa and there have been temples built there. There about 150 temples worldwide and, of course, several in Utah.

Writer’s Note: If you would like to learn more this is the link to a PBS four hour documentary

http://www.pbs.org/mormons/view/.

The Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City took 40 years to build. Brigham Young declared “This is the place” for where it should be built but died before its completion.

This statue depicts the time in 1829 when Jesus’ Apostles Peter, James and John gave the gift of the Holy Ghost to perform saving ordinances to Joseph Smith.

Mormon pioneers used hand carts, designed by Brigham Young, to get their belongings to their new lives in Utah because they could not afford wagons. Many lives were lost along the way.