Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
A Malaysian state was forced to drop its local symbol and sports mascot—the giant leatherback turtle—because it is on the verge of extinction. For centuries, thousands of the leatherbacks would land on the state of Terengganu’s beaches each year to lay their eggs. But in recent years, the turtles have virtually disappeared as a result of Malaysians’ taste for the eggs, which have been overharvested. The leatherback has thus become a source of embarrassment, rather than pride. The state’s chief minister said the new mascot would be the clown fish, which he described as “more agile and dynamic.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Citizenship: Trump order blocked againFeature After the Supreme Court restricted nationwide injunctions, a federal judge turned to a class action suit to block Trump's order to end birthright citizenship
-
Loyalty tests: The purge at the FBIFeature Kash Patel is conducting polygraph tests on FBI agents to weed out anyone speaking badly about him
-
The all-seeing tech giantFeature Palantir's data-mining tools are used by spies and the military. Are they now being turned on Americans?
