There has to be a balance here between the rights of human beings, their security and their property, versus the turtles. We all must adapt. The environmentalist wackos would prefer it if nobody lived on the beach so that the turtles wouldn’t be interrupted by anything. You can get exemptions. If you want to call ’em up, call the town, get an exemption from the ordinance and throw a party one night, you can do it. I said, ‘Well what happens if the hatchlings happen to burrow up that night?’ Everybody tries to work with each other on this, but now it is eight months of the year we on the beach must be dark. I’ve even been told that you have to lower blackout shades if you’re going to have lights on in the second floor, inside the house. So this has been a sticking point with me for many moons since I’ve lived here, and of course me being who I am and these environmentalist trolls are out there on the beach spying as often as they can. (interruption)
The trolls out on the beach, why can’t they redirect the turtles when they’re out there? That’s an excellent question. The broadcast engineer said, ‘If these environmental trolls are on the beach, why can’t they just redirect the turtles when the hatchlings bop up?’ They’re not out there every night. They make weekly surveys to see who’s in compliance and who isn’t. I remember one night it was pouring rain, and my front gate buzzer rang. I wasn’t there, but the gate buzzer rang. The property manager goes and looks. It’s a cop out there with an environmentalist wacko claiming my house is lit up like a Christmas tree. The policeman didn’t even know what the ordinance was. We were in compliance, took him to the backyard and showed him. It was pure harassment. So I’ve looked into doing things but there’s three different groups: the county, the town, and the state.
I’ve looked at some of the reports from the many bureaucracies involved with this issue and they are frightening. (interruption) Well, people do eat turtle soup, yes, but I don’t think they’re turtles captured in Palm Beach. I certainly don’t know if that’s going on, so don’t go there. Last time I had turtle soup was in New Orleans where there really aren’t beaches, just deltas out there. Yeah, people still eat turtle soup. Have to get ’em from somewhere. Let me tell you something. A sea turtle has gotta lay eggs. They don’t make beach reservations. They don’t call environmentalists in advance and say ‘I think I’m going to be in Tuesday night, but if I see some lights I’m hanging back in the ocean until its totally dark. They MUST lay the eggs and they don’t wear watches or know what day and date it is. Now we’re being told that lights on the beach will send the mother sea turtles dashing back into the ocean. (interruption)
Well, that’s a… I’m being asked if they closed down South Beach. I don’t know. I have no idea if they closed down South Beach. I do know that I’ve seen people… I’ve been at parties where houses three feet from the water line on the beach were blazing. It’s not uniformly applied. We get this note from the town every February 25th reminding us. It has little turtle graphics all over it. ‘It’s time, once again, for beach residents to turn off the lights.’ I don’t think there’s been a sea turtle show up here (that was sane, anyway) in March. I’ve never heard of it. Before the environmentalist wackos got hold of everything, it was May 1st. You know, May 1st to October, fine and dandy. So I’m thinking of going to beach this week. I’ll take some bottles of Pétrus and Haut Brion, some bread and cheese and just wait for them to arrive and say hi. ‘Heeey, we’re glad you’re back! Our lights are dimmed. We’re out here. We know you’re not going to be here for a couple months, but we wanted to get here early just to get a reserved seat for your return.’ Thank you for indulging me on this, folks.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Jennifer in Mooresville, North Carolina, welcome to the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. It’s an honor to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: I just wanted to tell you something about the sea turtles. I homeschool my son and we just finished a homeschooling unit on ocean life and we did a unit on sea turtles and everything and they actually don’t have very good vision. They’re actually nearsighted, so they can’t see far. I’m doubting that they could see the lights from your house anyway.
RUSH: So they wouldn’t be distracted by the flash from a muzzle.
CALLER: No, I don’t think so. You have to at least think about this. At least you’re making the environmentalist wackos happy by reducing your carbon footprint by not having any lights on.
RUSH: I know. It’s eight months out of the year. It’s absolutely ridiculous. I don’t want to belabor this. You know, I get this off my chest every March when this happens, but I’ll tell you one other story. When the house was being built we didn’t light the construction project at night. There were no lights there and we showed up the next day at the construction project and the contractor, foreman came up, said, ‘We got some dead sea turtles here, babies.’ I said, ‘What?’ Yeah. So I went and looked at them and I said, ‘Why the hell did they end up here? There weren’t any lights on here last night. They don’t light the construction project.’ We have foxes around, so we thought maybe a fox brought ’em up. But, no, the fox would have eaten them if that was the case. Something killed them. So the next night we did a little survey and we found out that the moon came up at a certain time, the moon was in the western sky, and maybe that’s what attracted them. Well, no, no, no, it was overcast, and the lights from the power plant across the Intracoastal you could see in the clouds. And I said, ‘This cannot be.’
I’ve seen these animal shows where they show animals eating each other, these National Geographic shows, and I’ve seen little turtles, they bop out and the camera people, they can’t have lights, it’s nighttime. And they have lights on the beach, and here come the turtles, they come out and the cameraman is standing behind the sea turtles, not down toward the water, and the little baby hatchlings, they burrow up through the sand, and, bam, they make a dash for the ocean. They’re small and tiny and there’s a giant light illuminating the camera and showing us all this. I said, ‘Wait a minute, how come the light from the camera didn’t attract the turtles to the cameraman?’ Next thing they’re going to tell us is that we gotta turn the lights off year round simply ’cause Limbaugh was complaining. (interruption) Yeah, fence is up. It’s not just a fence. There’s a sea grate, there’s a dune, there’s all kinds of things. It’s an obstacle course out there. Land mines, I got it all. Well, I’m just teasing about the land mines. Anyway, Jennifer, thanks for the call.