seaturtle.org : MTN : ARCHIVES : Sign In

Marine Turtle Newsletter 117:17-20, © 2007

Marine Turtle Newsletter-Online

NEWS AND LEGAL BRIEFS


This section is compiled by Kelly Samek. You can submit news items at any time online at <https://seaturtle.org/news/>, via e-mail to news@seaturtle.org, or by regular mail to Kelly Samek, 127 E 7th Avenue, Havana, Florida 32333, USA. Many of these news items and more can be found at https://seaturtle.org/news/, where you can also sign up for news updates by E-mail. Note that News Items are taken directly from various media sources and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the editorial members of the MTN.

GLOBAL

Volunteers pluck 7 million pounds of trash from world’s waterways


Cigarettes are still the biggest trash problem on the world’s beaches, according to a group that picks them up. Of the 7.7 million pieces of debris collected in 68 countries during an annual beach cleanup day last September, cigarettes and cigarette butts accounted for roughly 1.9 million, The Ocean Conservancy reported Thursday. More than 350,000 volunteers removed about 7 million pounds of debris from 34,500 miles of coastlines and waterways, and ocean, river and lake bottoms. Coming in second at about 768,000 items were food wrappers and containers, which can be extremely dangerous to wildlife. “A plastic sandwich bag floating in the ocean may look like a jellyfish, a favorite food of sea turtles,” said Sonya Besteiro, the cleanup project manager. “If a sea turtle ingests a plastic bag it may feel full and stop eating, which results in starvation. Or the bag could block the animal’s digestive system and cause death.” Discarded fishing gear and plastic debris kill more than 1 million sea birds and more than 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles each year, the conservancy said. The United States had the most participants in 2006, according to the report, with 182,100 people cleaning some 4.1 million pounds of trash from 10,550 miles of waterways and coastlines. Canada saw the second-best participation with about 26,550 people, followed by the Philippines where some 25,500 volunteers helped out. Source: AP News, 7 June 2007.

AFRICA

Divers launch Red Sea turtle conservation project


A team of diving instructors in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh has launched a new sea turtle conservation scheme to help protect the area’s turtle population. The Red Sea Turtle Project, supported and financed by the Project AWARE Foundation, will map South Sinai turtle populations and nesting grounds in order to identify areas in need of protection against threats such as illegal fishing. The brainchild of resident instructors, Marco Giovannini, Valentina Cucchiara, Nick Poole, Lauren Irwin and Claudio di Manao, the Red Sea Turtle Project will involve all major dive centres in Sharm, diving guests and the local Bedouin fishing community. The project has already gained support from the Ras Mohammed National Park and a speciality diving course has also been launched to help divers learn more about marine turtle biology and conservation. Marco Giovannini, the training manager of Camel Dive Club who created the Sea Turtle Awareness Diver course said the project was working hard to organise meetings with local authorities and Red Sea stakeholders to promote its campaign. The new conservation group said it hoped that the protection scheme would eventually expand to cover the entire Red Sea. For more information about Red Sea Turtle Project and how to get involved see www.redseaturtles.com. Source: Dive Magazine, 8 June 2007.
THE AMERICAS

Longline Fisheries, Global Warming Threaten North Pacific Loggerhead Sea Turtles: Endangered Status Sought


Conservation groups filed a formal petition today to increase protections for critically imperiled loggerhead sea turtles that are found off the U.S. West Coast and are caught and killed in industrial fisheries based in California and Hawaii. The petition, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and Turtle Island Restoration Network, seeks to have North Pacific loggerhead sea turtles listed as “endangered” under the federal Endangered Species Act and to have areas along the California coast and off Hawaii designated as “critical habitat” for the species. The primary threat to loggerhead sea turtles is pelagic longline fishing. Longline fishing vessels seeking swordfish and tuna each deploy several thousand baited hooks on fishing lines that can extend for more than 60 miles. Over a billion longline hooks are set in the world’s oceans each year, catching and killing not just swordfish and tuna but thousands of sea turtles, seabirds, marine mammals and sharks. More than 1,000 scientists and 300 organizations from 100-plus countries have called upon the United Nations for a moratorium on pelagic longline fishing in the Pacific Ocean. Source: Center for Biological Diversity press release, 13 July 2007
Tough times for turtles: Research continues on endangered leatherback turtles

A decade ago, Mike James and Kathleen Martin set out to protect the endangered leatherback sea turtle. The couple founded the Nova Scotia Leatherback Turtle Working Group (NSLTWG) and took their quest directly to the community with a poster campaign asking, “Have you seen this turtle?” After a decade of committed work, NSLTWG has established that not only do turtles come to east coast waters, they come regularly. Their work has spawned a revolutionary model for marine conservation. Annual visits to coastal villages have earned the loyal participation of hundreds of volunteer fishermen, as well as naturalists, tour-boat operators and community members, who have learned techniques for disentangling turtles from fishing gear, the chief threat to the leatherback’s survival. Now their pioneering work has earned them a prestigious award — a gold medal for conservation by the Canadian Environment Awards. Source: Dalhousie News, 29 June 2007.

Rescuers Return Turtle To Ocean

A loggerhead turtle made its way back to the Pacific on Thursday with a little help from SeaWorld. The marine reptile’s journey to the open sea was a long and circuitous one. It was brought to the park about a year ago by employees of the Stephen Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institute, who had gotten via an Encinitas dive shop. According to a SeaWorld news release, the turtle had been brought to the beach in that North County city by a private owner who, after having the reptile for four years, intended to release it into the ocean. People on the beach that day, however, convinced the owner to turn it over to the dive shop. SeaWorld employees cared for the animal for the past year until releasing the 36-pound, 15-inch loggerhead on Thursday morning several miles off the San Diego coast. It had weighed only 7.5 pounds when it arrived at the park, according to the news release. Officials said they believe the turtle will head south, then onto Japan. If it lives to adulthood, it could be reach 200 pounds and be 3 feet long. Source: NBCSandiego.com, 19 July 2007.

24 loggerhead turtles to be released

The Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Florida Park Service and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) announced the groups will release 24 loggerhead turtles at Sebastian Inlet State Park on 2 July, 2007. The 3-year-old turtles are graduates of an innovative National Marine Fisheries Service program, the Turtle Excluder Device (TED) certification program. The TED is a metal grid of bars attached to a shrimp trawling net. It has an opening at either the top or the bottom which creates a hatch allowing larger animals such as sea turtles to escape while keeping shrimp inside. In 1987, the United States implemented regulations that require all U.S. shrimpers to use TEDs on their trawlers. Source: Florida Today, 30 June 2007.

Climate change affecting sea turtle nesting habits

The changing nesting patterns of endangered sea turtles in Guyana, is alerting environmentalists to the impact of climate change on these marine animals. The shell beaches in Region One have hosted thousands of nesting turtles over the years, and conservationists have been endeavouring to protect the turtles from heavy domestic use and from being traded. Project Coordinator of the Guyana Marine Turtle Conservation Society Michelle Kalamandeen said recently that climate change is affecting the sea turtles. According to Kalamandeen, in the 1960s the Hawksbill (critically endangered) and the Olive-Ridley (endangered) were our main nesting turtles, now the green turtles (endangered) and the leatherbacks (critically endangered) are mostly coming to nest on Guyana’s shores. The Pacific Leatherback is said to be now extinct and the Atlantic Leatherback is facing extinction. The change in the time period for nesting in Guyana may also be a significant sign. Usually sea turtles nest in Guyana from March to August every year. However, for the last three to four years, the nesting pattern has shifted from mid-January to mid-July. This may have a significant impact on the hatchlings as food availability may be an issue for them. Source: Stabroek News, 25 June 2007.

New Report Finds Hope Despite Over-exploitation of Endangered Caribbean Sea Turtles

TRAFFIC announced a new report (<http://www.traffic.org/content/952.pdf>) indicating that high levels of exploitation in legal fisheries, and through illegal take and trade, continue to pose a threat to the marine turtles of the Wider Caribbean region. The report was commissioned by the Secretariat of CITES and released at the CITES Conference of Parties in The Hague in June 2007. While documenting major advancements in marine turtle research and conservation in recent years, the report finds that legal but largely unmanaged marine turtle exploitation persists in over half of the 26 Wider Caribbean countries and territories surveyed. Despite challenges associated with inadequate restrictions on exploitation and a lack of systematic monitoring of the number of turtles killed each year, the report finds hope in the region’s many pioneering initiatives. Specific recommendations in the report include: the establishment of scientifically-based limits on the exploitation of marine turtles; comprehensive surveys to quantify exploitation; monitoring and awareness programmes; a more coherent legal framework; and better national and regional law enforcement. The assessment is the latest of a series of technical reviews associated with the CITES Caribbean Hawksbill Turtle Range State Dialogue Meetings (<http://www.cites.org/eng/prog/hbt.shtml>); a similar assessment of northern Caribbean countries was published by TRAFFIC in 2001 (<http://www.traffic.org/seaturtles/>). For more information, contact Dr. Karen Eckert, WIDECAST/Duke University, keckert@widecast.org.

ASIA

Tax electricity to save sea turtles


Members of the public should be charged a tax of US$1 (Bt33) on monthly electricity bills to help save marine turtles in Asia, according to research from the Economy and Environment Programme for Southeast Asia. Prof Orapan Nabang-chang-Srisawalak of the research team said the idea was initiated by focus group discussions in China, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand between 2005 and this year. After surveying 3,680 respondents across the region, the study shows that people are willing to pay only $0.02 to save marine turtles, even though they believe conservation is important. In addition, they believe they are already too highly taxed and do not believe that the taxes will be effectively collected or used. The study suggested that if people could pay $1 per household per month, it would raise between $50 million and $135 million per year in the four countries and would be enough to create sustainable activities to save the sea turtle in the region. The amount is more than the current combined global expenditure on marine turtle conservation by 162 conservation organisations, estimated at some $US20 million per year. Source: The Nation (Thailand), 24 July 2007.

Small steps key to saving giant turtles

Small and inexpensive steps could go a long way towards rescuing the Western Pacific’s dwindling population of giant sea turtles. At a turtle crisis conference in Malaysia, conservation biologist Peter Dutton urged authorities to do more to preserve the state of leatherback turtles’ nesting beaches to ensure eggs are hatched. “The population recovers very rapidly in the period of 25 to 30 years,” Dutton said in an interview from Malaysia’s eastern Terengganu state, where NOAA is holding a four-day conference to develop a long-term conservation plan for leatherbacks in the region. Leatherbacks were once a star attraction in Terengganu, where they frequently nested. None have been sighted in the last few years and overfishing, poaching and pollution have been blamed for killing them. Dutton said some of the biggest threats could be easily avoided, for example by blocking the use of fishing nets at nesting areas because they could strangle females coming ashore to nest and prevent baby turtles from safely leaving. He said the focus was now on protecting female turtles and nesting beaches in Indonesia’s Papua, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Malaysia. Particularly in Indonesia’s Papua “the leatherback population has not collapsed,” which leaves time for conservation efforts, he said. Source: Agence France Presse, 20 July 2007.

Juvenile green turtles set free in Sai Kung

Dozens of juvenile green turtles, incubated locally and under the care of the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department and Ocean Park over the past seven months, have been returned to the sea. Department staff set 61 turtles free on Tai Long Wan beach (Hong Kong) in batches in a week-long operation that started July 11 and finished at noon July 17. The turtles will spend their first few years in the seaweed mats in open waters. Wetland & Fauna Conservation Officer (Monitoring) Mr Cheung Ka-shing said the release of the turtles took into account suitable water temperature and favourable water current. The department microchipped the turtles for future identification and took blood samples from them for scientific research purposes. Since being hatched last December, the turtles had grown remarkably. In a matter of seven months, they increased on average from 25 grammes to 800 grammes in weight and from 5cm to 16cm in carapace length. The juveniles’ story dated back to last September when their mother was found nesting on Tai Long Wan. Because of the cooling weather and the risk of outside disturbance, the department collected the eggs for both artificial and natural incubation and eventually obtained 61 hatchlings. Tai Long Wan had not been nested by sea turtles for more than 30 years. The department will continue to monitor the area and its vicinity for any new nesting incidents. Source: PressZoom, 17 July 2007.

Greenpeace raises serious concern over mega port in Orissa

International environmental campaigner Greenpeace has raised serious concern over steel major Tata Steel’s move to set up a mega port in Dhamra in Orissa’s coastal Bhardrak district, saying it would be an ‘ecological blunder causing irreversible destruction’ in the state’s coastal areas. The Dhamra port site is situated just five kilometres from the Bhitarkanika National Park, India’s second largest mangrove forest and less than 15 kilometres from the Gahimatha Marine Sanctuary, the world’s largest mass nesting ground for the endangered Olive Ridley sea turtles. Tata Steel and construction giant Larsen and amp; Toubro are jointly promoting Dhamra port with an estimated cost of Rs.25 billion. Addressing a news conference here Friday, Oceans Campaigner of Greenpeace Ashish Fernandes said: ‘A Greenpeace-commissioned study has unequivocally established that Tata Steel’s port at Dhamra would be an ecological blunder causing irreversible destruction.’ Releasing the report on the World Oceans Day, renowned turtle researcher S.K. Dutta said: ‘The finding shatters the theory that the offshore waters near Dhamra are a no-turtle zone. The water and the beach around the port site are breeding and feeding grounds for the turtles.’ ‘Over the course of our study conducted between February and March this year, we have recorded over 2,000 dead turtles, victims of mechanised fishing on the port site and in the nearby areas like Kanika Sands, an island off the port site,’ said Dutta, principal investigator of the study. Source: India eNews, 8 June 2007.

Malaysia to release thousands of hawksbill turtles

About 30,000 hawksbill turtles are expected to be released into the sea this year from a conservation programme that collected eggs along the coast of Malacca state, a report said Thursday. “Last year, a total of 24,800 turtles were set free and this year we expect to free about 30,000,” said Sukarno Wagiman, head of resources rehabilitation at the Fisheries Department.About 40 percent of the eggs were found on Upeh Island, off the Malacca coast. The state government is taking back the island -- which was sold to national utility company Tenaga Nasional in 2003 -- to turn it into a research and management centre for the turtles. “The government wants to protect the island to help preserve the hawksbill turtles,” Malacca chief minister Mohamad Ali Rustam said. Source: Agence France Presse, 4 July 2007.

EUROPE

Climate change causes early arrival of loggerheads to Alanya


Turkey’s endangered loggerheads were already the subject of much attention both as a tourist attraction and a part of the country’s natural wealth, now however, they are in the news for a different reason after their arrival on Turkey’s southern sandy shores a month early; yet another result of global warming, experts say. Loggerheads usually come on land around July every year, but this year began to arrive in June. The sight of turtles coming back to Alanya, their place of birth, after traveling miles and miles, spurred the authorities to act. While the Alanya Agricultural Directorate takes precautionary measures on the beaches, the Alanya Environment preservation and Blue Flag Association will protect eggs of the loggerhead, a species on the edge of extinction. Authorities are sending warning that fire, dogs and cats are banned in this area and calling the citizens to be aware of their beaches’ endangered visitors. Head of the Alanya Agricultural Directorate Umut Olgun said that the turtles have started arriving earlier on the shores of Alanya this year. Remark¬ing that loggerheads typically arrive on Alanya shores to lay their eggs between July and September every year, Olgun pointed out that their early arrival this year could have been caused by global climate change. Source: Today’s Zaman, 24 June 2007.

Turtles loyal in feeding and breeding

British scientists have discovered sea turtles, after laying their eggs, travel hundreds of miles to return to traditional foraging sites. The research, led by Annette Broderick at the University of Exeter, strengthens the argument for the protection of key foraging sites of the endangered species. The extent to which turtles showed fidelity to specific foraging sites and routes was a surprise, said Broderick. Marine turtles migrate hundreds of miles between breeding and foraging grounds, so it is amazing they are able to return to exactly the same sites via very similar routes. Broderick and her team tracked 20 turtles nesting at two Cyprus beaches. All females remained in the same foraging grounds, moving to deeper water for the winter. Five females were also tracked when they nested again up to five years later and returned to the same foraging sites. Scientists said they don’t know why this behavior has evolved but added they believe it’s possible sea turtles are territorial or are responding to limited food resources by sticking to their own feeding patches. Source: UPI, 30 April 2007.

Rare leatherback turtle washes up dead in Co Cork

rare leatherback turtle has washed up dead along the shoreline in Ballycotton, Co Cork. The reptile, which is said to be between 10 and 12 feet long, was spotted this morning. Marine officials are in¬vestigating and tests will be carried out to determine the cause of its death. Leatherbacks are the largest turtles in the world and normally spend their time in warm tropical waters. The sometimes come close to Ireland to feed on jellyfish. The turtles swim thousands of miles every year from their feeding grounds to beaches where they lay their eggs. Source: Belfast Telegraph, 24 July 2007.

OCEANIA

Rare turtle death not in vain


A rare sea turtle with only one recorded sample at the Queensland Museum will be examined by UQ marine scientists and veterinarians. The Olive Ridley Turtle, the smallest of the sea turtles measuring about 60 centimetres long, was found washed up by a fisherman on Main Beach at North Stradbroke Island. UQ Moreton Bay Research Station Education Officer Dr Kathy Townsend said attempts were made to save the turtle but it was too sick. She said Moreton Bay was the southern extent of their distribution and Olive Ridleys had only been recorded once or twice in the past decade. A necropsy of the turtle indicated that it had been ill for some time and was mostly likely pushed by ocean currents to the island. The skeleton will be sent to the Queensland Museum which currently lacks a complete Olive Ridley skeleton. Source: UQ News Online, 30 April 2007.

Turtles need to be watched

Environmental stakeholders are calling for a better monitoring system to be put in place to protect turtles. Researcher at the University of the South Pacific Merewalesi Laveti said according to the response from awareness programs, fewer turtles were nesting and more were being spotted in nearby waters. “To researchers, this is an indication that more turtles nearing nesting stages are being harvested and those not in the nesting stages are the ones that people can see,” Ms Laveti said. “If there is a proper monitoring system put in place people will communicate with the proper authorities on anything to do with turtles.” Ms Laveti said such information helped researchers in their work on the endangered species. People living along coastal areas have been constantly reminded not to kill turtles unnecessarily especially for traditional events. Another project which is being observed in Fiji and other parts of the region, she said is the Turtle Moratorium. The project focuses on protecting turtles also the usage of its shells being made into jewelleries and similar creativity. Turtle Moratorium was launched in 2004. Environmentalists have also said that there were many threats to sea turtle populations in the Pacific region, but direct and indirect impact by humans for example harvest of turtles and eggs and by catch in fisheries, were among the most serious problems. Source: Fiji Times, 16 June 2007.

Rare Moreton Bay turtles threatened

Lost crab pots are killing endangered Loggerhead turtles in Moreton Bay, igniting fears they could become extinct. Sea World and the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) yesterday launched an extensive campaign to warn fishermen of the devastating environmental impact lost and discarded crab pots were having in the area.In the past 10 years, the Loggerhead turtle population in Moreton Bay has dropped by up to 80 per cent - and Sea World Marine Sciences Director Trevor Long said they could be gone altogether within 100 years. Mr Long said unsuspecting turtles were climbing into crab pots or becoming entangled in other recreational and commercial fishing gear - and subsequently drowning. The first step in tackling the problem was ensuring fishermen were more responsible with their pots. “A lot of times these crab pots have been lost or discarded (and) they’ve floated away from where the fisherman had put them,” Mr Long said. AMCS will use kayakers and volunteers to map the location of crab pot “hot spots” and attempt to remove discarded pots - in turn educating people about the dangers posed by errant pots. Other human activities affecting turtle populations include discarded plastic bags, while boat strikes were believed to kill one or more turtles every day in Queensland waters. Source: Brisbane Times, 16 June 2007.