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Marine Turtle Newsletter 109:14, © 2005

Marine Turtle Newsletter-Online

Grupo Tortuguero’s 3rd Annual Festival of the Caguamas


Several thousand people from Baja California Sur, Mexico will gather the weekend of 12-14 August 2005 to celebrate loggerhead turtles (caguamas) as natural treasures and ocean ambassadors which connect the ecosystems and cultures of the Pacific Basin. Organized by a local women’s committee, Festival 2005 will include children’s art contests, horse races, a battle of the local bands, fishing boat races, kayak races, local turtle craft sales, offshore turtle tours, and a local animal costume parade for children. Awards will honor fishermen and other costeños who are leading efforts to reduce turtle bycatch and poaching. The Governor of BCS will crown the local high school girl who has contributed the most to local conservation Festival Queen during a beach dance party.

Juvenile loggerhead turtles gather off the coast of Baja California Sur to feed and mature where gillnet fishing is intense. This unfortunate overlap of fishing and foraging results in severe turtle bycatch – one of the greatest documented threats to loggerheads in the North Pacific.

Details: Grupo Tortuguero’s 3rd Annual Festival of the Caguamas. 12-14 August 2005. Puerto Lopez Mateos, BCS México. Contact: Johath Laudino (johath@hotmail.com) or Hoyt Peckham (hoyt@oceanrevolution.org). Made possible with support from the BCS Tourism Board, Journey Mexico, Packard Foundation, Western Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Council, RARE, and NFWF, through a partnership of ProPeninsula, Grupo Tortuguero and Ocean Revolution.