Balloons, Turtles and Flags

When I woke up yesterday morning it never occurred to me that I would be researching Balloons and Turtles instead of Sales Figures for the local housing market.

But when I finally settled in at my desk ready to finish up my Q2 Home Sales Report for the NH Seacoast, the phone rang.  On the other end of the line was a soft-spoken woman who sounded almost apologetic for interrupting my day.  She introduced herself as Jean Northrup of Hampton.  
Not Hampton, New Hampshire, but,
Hampton, New Brunswick, CANADA.  

She wanted to let me know that a Weichert Realtors Yellow Balloon had landed in her pasture.  

I found this interesting as our office is over 372 miles away. And in our office we don't use balloons. Could it be this balloon came from New York or elsewhere?  But, where the balloon came from really isn't the point of this post. Or Is It?

She told me that she didn't want to come off as a (I can't remember her exact words,  but I think it was something like a) "tree hugger".  Rather, she wanted to ask for my help. She lives about 20 miles inland from the Bay of Fundy and there is marsh land all around her. Recently the Painted Turtle has shown up.  She wrote in a subsequent email to me that "...The turtles in our marsh are just painted turtles but we were excited to learn that they had never been known to breed anywhere in New Brunswick other than around a large lake (Grand Lake) 50 miles north of here."   

I saw where our conversation was going and I was intrigued.

The Painted Turtle

Jean is a member of the environmental committee in her town and she is very aware and concerned about the marine life (and all animal life for that matter.) She wanted me to know that Turtles and other wildlife die from ingestion of foreign debris like plastic and balloons which the wildlife thinks is food.

Seeing a balloon with a name on it, and to then trace that name and make a phone call to share her concern, was in my opinion a great move. I learned a couple of things and hopefully this post will help create more awareness.

The thought that using a Balloon at an Open House might cause harm to something hundreds of miles away had never entered my mind before.  But the potential evidence was staring me in the face.  Here was a balloon in fairly good condition that had traveled at least 372 miles to land in Jeans pasture.  Who knows how long it had been drifting.  In reading a couple of articles I thought balloons were more likely to disintegrate at high altitude, but apparently that's not always the case.  As even though latex is biodegradable, the processing it goes through makes it no longer biodegradable (see below).   The result - right there in Jean's pasture. And fortunately Jean found it before it ended up in the marsh.

I did feel somewhat relieved as in our office we DON'T use balloons, we use flags.  Flags are easier to use, they are reusable and they don't drift away.  Even still, I told Jean that I would share this in an effort to help spread the word - that using Balloons filled with Helium while bright and attractive can be potentially dangerous and to use safer and more creative methods of attracting attention (see links below) - For Open Houses consider using flags like our office does.  

At the end of the day unless you dispose of Helium filled balloons versus letting them go (for any reason not just an open house), you really have no idea where that balloon is going to end up - In someones pasture or in the intestines of an innocent turtle. 

By the way after our call I started looking up some information that I will pass along here one of which was an article titled "The Effect of Balloons on the Environment,"  published in the NY Times NY/Region in 1990 the author says "...It is estimated by the Entanglement Network that over 100,000 marine mammals die each year from plastic entanglement or ingestion. A study performed in the Gulf of Mexico by the University of Texas Marine Science Institute concluded that 5 percent of the dead sea turtles had ingested latex (balloons). Although latex, in its natural state, is extremely biodegradable, in its processed commercial state latex is not biodegradable at all. Ordinary latex balloons will not start to degrade for about five months in the ocean, and shiny Mylar balloons last for years..."

For more information on the topic of Balloons and Turtles:
Plastics-at-Sea Catastrophe -http://www.conserveturtles.org/velador.php?page=velart88How Balloons are made - https://youtu.be/PJQecDCS1aI
Eastern Painted Turtle - http://novascotia.ca/museum/amphibians/en/turtles/painted.asp

Sea Turtle Threats: http://www.seeturtles.org/sea-turtles-threats
Balloons Blow-Don't Let Them Go http://balloonsblow.org/biodegradability-backyard-test
Adopt a Sea Turtle - http://gifts.worldwildlife.org/gift-center/gifts/Species-Adoptions/Sea-Turtle.aspx?sc=AWY1200WCGI1&gclid=CjwKEAjw5pKtBRCqpfPK5qXatWYSJABi5kTxaCB8zG808VGLtHcKGQLK2qbdY26cDGWT5ehkkHMiPhoCj3Dw_wcB
Environmentally Friendly Alternatives to Balloons - http://balloonsblow.org/environmentally-friendly-alternatives

Jean Northrup who found the balloon and called me is pictured here with one of her Westies.