MTN 106:13 First Record of a Leatherback Turtle in Syria

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First Record of a Leatherback Turtle in Syria

ALan F. Rees¹, Adib Saad² & Mohammad Jony³
¹ARCHELON, the Sea Turtle Protection Society of Greece, Solomou 57, GR-10432 Athens, Greece (E-mail: alan@archelon.gr)
²Laboratory of Marine Sciences and Aquatic Environment, Faculty of Agriculture, Tishreen University, PO Box 1408, Lattakia, Syria
³Directorate of Agriculture, Department of Animal Production, Lattakia, Syria

Three species of marine turtle, namely the loggerhead (Caretta caretta), green (Chelonia mydas) and leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea), regularly occur in the Mediterranean. The loggerhead and green turtles have established nesting colonies mainly in Greece, Cyprus and Turkey (see reviews by Margaritoulis et al. (2003) and Kasparek et al. (2001) for nesting distribution of loggerhead and green turtles, respectively). The leatherback is rarer and is a migrant from the Atlantic. It has no known or expected nesting sites in the Mediterranean.

A recent review of the occurrence of the leatherback turtle in the Mediterranean reported over 400 observations covering the entire range of the sea with none coming from Syria (Casale et al. 2003). This note, therefore, presents the first record of a leatherback turtle in Syrian waters.

The leatherback’s front left flipper had become entangled in the ropes of a trammel net, on the 4^th of August 2004 at about 2.5km offshore from Jableh town. The turtle was hauled on board the ship, taken to the port, photographed by its captors and returned to the sea alive.

The specimen was measured by locals to have a curved carapace length of approximately 140cm and no secondary elongation of the tail was evident. Eckert (2002) considered leatherbacks of less than 145cm curved carapace length to be juveniles and thus this individual is believed to be a large juvenile, possibly female due to the shortness of the tail at this near adult size. Photographs of the turtle can be viewed in the Image Library of seaturtle.org (<https://seaturtle.org/cgi-bin/imagelib/index.pl/?photo=1255> and <https://seaturtle.org/cgi-bin/imagelib/index.pl/?photo=1256>).

This observation adds yet another record of incidental capture of a leatherback in the Mediterranean associated with entanglement in nets and ropes rather than through ingestion of hooks.

Acknowledgements: AFR wishes to thank the Marine Conservation Society (UK) Turtle Conservation Fund and the British Chelonia Group for financing the conservation project in Syria that enabled this information to be collected.

Casale P., P. Nicolosi, D. Freggi, M. Turchetto & R. Argano. 2003. Leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) in Italy and in the Mediterranean Basin. Herpetological Journal 13:135-139.

Eckert, S.A. 2002. Distribution of juvenile leatherback sea turtle Dermochelys coriacea sightings. Marine Ecology Progress Series 230:289-293.

Kasparek M., B.J. Godley & A.C. Broderick. 2001. Nesting of the Green Turtle, Chelonia mydas, in the Mediterranean: a review of status and conservation needs. Zoology in the Middle East 24:45-74.

Margaritoulis D., R. Argano, I. Baran, F. Bentivegna, M.N. Bradai, J.A. Caminas, P. Casale, G. De Metrio, A. Demetropoulos, G. Gerosa, B.J. Godley, D.A. Haddoud, J. Houghton, L. Laurent & B. Lazar. 2003. Loggerhead turtles in the Mediterranean Sea: present knowledge and conservation perspectives. In A.B. Bolten & B.E. Witherington (Eds). Loggerhead Sea Turtles. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D.C. pp. 175-198.