BALLOONS KILL TURTLES

Visit the annual Darwin Show, exhibitions, trade fairs , even funerals , and you can’t help notice the large number of balloons,handed out to children ,or released, which can be seen drifting away in the sky. Pollies hand out balloons like fairy floss . Some of these must end up in the sea. The Turtle Lady of Great Keppel Island , Lindie Malan , has drawn attention to the danger of balloons to sea creatures. In a letter to the Magnetic Times online newspaper , she says turtles who eat balloons and other forms of plastic develop an intestinal blockage which causes the bladder to expand more and more,up to three times the normal. Unable to pee, they flop about in an emaciated state and slowly starve to death. Malan tells of confronting a person in a balloon shop who claimed the ballons were "biodegradable." When asked to eat three of them, the person declined . If Darwin is really fair dinkum about protecting the marine environment and the critters therein, and not engaging in mindless political stunts, then it should take REAL action over the massive release of balloons in the city.