When actor Ian Somerhalder starts talking about leatherback turtles, you almost forget that he plays the blood-sucking vampire Damon on the CW series “The Vampire Diaries.” “These little guys are so cool,” he said, showing Yeas & Nays a picture of baby turtles that he took on a recent trip to Trinidad and Tobago. He then starts gushing about one of the moms. “We were on the beach at 1 a.m. or something with this 800-pound female leatherback turtle,” he said. “I had her head in my hands, I actually kissed her forehead, I mean, it was just incredible to see this gigantic animal.”
Less than a year ago, the actor started his own save-the-animals organization, the Ian Somerhalder Foundation. Somerhalder, a Gulf Coast native, was horrified by last summer’s oil spill. “In the wake of this BP oil spill the unbearable feeling of being completely helpless is saddening, it’s infuriating, it’s inspiring in a way, and the idea was I don’t ever want to feel that way again,” he said.
Fast forward to last Thursday, when Somerhalder made his debut on Capitol Hill, testifying before the House Natural Resources Committee on species conservation legislation. Despite the very partisan nature of the debt ceiling talks, Somerhalder said that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were on board with his conservation agenda. “There wasn’t very much opposition. There were questions, but there wasn’t a lot of opposition,” he said. “I guess, what I gather is, it’s not typically like that.”
In his congressional testimony, Somerhalder spoke up for a variety of species including rhinos, tigers, elephants, great apes and, of course, marine turtles. “You start talking about things like sea turtle conversation [and] people can say, ‘Who cares?’ and ‘Sea turtles, whatever,’ ” Somerhalder said. “You have to remind them, or elaborate, that the loss of any species will effectually always have an effect on another species or several species. … It’s no joke.”
