Honey Girl

I found this at http://malamanahonu.org/meetHonu.asp and wanted to share it. I love turtles (duh!) and the thought of someone doing this is horrible. I don't understand why anyone would want to hurt anything else, especially something so defenseless. I think it shows us just how important it is to educate people and to work to save animals that we share the earth with.

Name: HONEY GIRL
Hawaiian name: HONE U'I
ADULT, FEMALE

Markings: PIT # 502E4C2703

Honey Girl, approximately 35-40 years old, began regularly hauling out onto the North Shore beach in 2005. As the largest adult female turtle of our Laniakea Ohana (family), Honey Girl weighed approximately 250 pounds and was 94.5 cm long ( Straight Carapace Length) . Before coming to Laniakea, L-20 was known to the marine scientists on East Island in the French Frigate Shoals, the largest atoll in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. In 2000 she had migrated 500 miles from Oahu to East Island to mate and nest. While there, the researchers implanted a microchip, the size of a grain of rice, into her left hind flipper. This PIT ( Passive Integrated Transponder) allowed the scientists to identify her throughout the Hawaiian Archipelago , as she migrated from the foraging areas of the Main Hawaiian Islands to the nesting beaches of the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, Honey Girl was also known by her Hawaiian name of "Hone U'i", because of her exquisite honey amber shell, and L-20, as she was the twentieth turtle to repeatedly come ashore at Laniakea to bask. Data collected by the dedicated Malama na Honu volunteer Honu Guardians reveals that Honey Girl basked on the beach 11% of each year at Laniakea Beach. On July 19, 2008 Honey Girl was discovered slaughtered at Laniakea Beach. She had been buried in the sand upside down, with a flipper and breast plate maliciously removed. The evening before, this innocent, defenseless turtle had been basking under the full moon.