Dear Richie -
 
Wanted to tell you I just finished reading your latest email, and thought it
was very well done.  It always amazes me that when perople start criticing
the individual shell collector they never mention the things that are really
causing the problem.
 
Too many things are deliberately dumped in the ocean as a way of getting rid
of them.  I read where Miami's sewege is piped into the ocean and is
floating down and killing the reefs in the Florida Keys that are habitats
for many shells not to mention other marine animals.  I was told Durban Bay,
that used to have a good molluscan population, is now practically dead
because the Bay was made an international port and ships anchor there and
dump their bilge into it. Another article told of how the Sargasso Sea in
the Western Atlantic is dying because of plastic bags that have been
disposed of into the ocean end up getting tangled in the Sargasso weed which
is a fantastic nursery for planktonic veligers.  Housing developers along
the shore destroy shallow water habitats.  I saw on an island off the the
northwest coast of the Malaysian pennisula sand flats that were alive with
crawling shells at low tide.  And while we watched sand was being dredged in
deep water and carried by pipeline inshore to build up a beautiful beach for
a large condo that had just been built.  I am sure you could all add many
more instances of this type of distruction.
 
I am tired of people saying we are destroying living things.  Just wait
until the next time I see one of them pick up a fly swatter or slap a mosquito.
 
And now I will step down off my soapbox.
 
The Tall One
Betty Jean Piech
Wilmington,DE,USA
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__@/- "Laughter is an instant vacation"  -\@__
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