A Tale of Too Many Turtles

Many businessmen would probably be happy to receive more goods than they ordered, so long as they did not have to pay money for them. Not Rene Debruyne, a grain and pet dealer in Lille. When his shipment arrived at the port of Dunkirk, he refused to accept custody. He had ordered 20,000 turtles, and his Moroccan supplier had generously thrown in an extra 5,000-but the shipment had arrived three months late. "The summer holidays are approaching," Debruyne explained, "and I couldn't dispose of that many turtles."

Yet there they were, in 365 wicker baskets, and the port veterinarian decreed that if they were to stay in France, they would have to be treated like good French turtles. "They need crawling room, good food and daily sprinkling," he said. The baskets were therefore opened, and the turtles, gray-green creatures ranging from three to eleven inches in length, were given the run--or crawl--of two vast warehouses. The veterinarian looked in on them twice a day, the longshoremen cooled them with sprinklers, and the Dunkirk Chamber of Commerce sent them several thousand heads of lettuce. "If they were looking for lettuce," boasted Michel Duquesne, one of the suppliers, "they came to the right place. The area around Dunkirk is full of lettuce."

The turtles, who actually come from the dry foothills of the Atlas Mountains, found the lettuce strange and exotic to their taste. A number of them became sick from overeating. Some of the healthier turtles managed to escape out into the streets of Dunkirk. Special barriers had to be built. Debruyne, meanwhile, received the bills for the regular care and feeding of the turtles--all 25,000 of them. He also had to pay for the veterinarian. "What a silly idea, taking the turtles out of their baskets and stuffing them with lettuce," he fumed. "They could have easily fasted for two months and lived happily for several weeks in their baskets."

Two weeks after their arrival, the customs authorities finally auctioned off the turtles to a seafood wholesaler near Paris for the bargain price of $2,200. Though pet lovers were worried at the news of this ominous sale, a company spokesman last week issued a calming statement: "These aren't the kind of sea turtles that go into soup. We are selling them to children, and we have already sold 8,000. By next week we will have sold 10,000. I can reassure everyone that this turtle story has a happy ending."

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