MTN 118:20-21 The Sixth Reunion of Mediterranean Sea Turtle Specialists at the 27th Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Conservation and Biology (Myrtle Beach, SC, USA, 24 February 2007)

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The Sixth Reunion of Mediterranean Sea Turtle Specialists at the 27th Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Conservation and Biology (Myrtle Beach, SC, USA, 24 February 2007)

Dimitris Margaritoulis & Paolo Casale
MTSG Regional Co-Chairs for the Mediterranean (E-mail: margaritoulis@archelon.gr; paolo.casale@tiscali.it)

The Reunion of Mediterranean Sea Turtle Specialists within the context of the Annual Sea Turtle Symposia brings together scientists, conservationists and students working with sea turtles in the Mediterranean. These gatherings promote regional cooperation, disseminate recent information on events concerning conservation and research, and create a basis for planning and organizing regional projects. This year’s meeting was held in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (USA) at the venue of the 27th Sea Turtle Symposium (Embassy Suites Hotel), on 24 February 2007. Twenty four people from eight countries participated.
The meeting began with a short introduction by DM who emphasized the importance of these annual meetings and introduced PC as his co-chair for Mediterranean of the IUCN’s Marine Turtle Specialist Group. DM invited PC to chair the present meeting and to take over the task of organizing these meetings in the future, which responsibilities PC readily accepted. Then all participants introduced themselves and a draft agenda, previously posted at the regional listserv MedTurtle, was finalized. The main items discussed at the meeting were the following:

Country-by-country update
Recent events, related to sea turtle conservation and research, were presented by participants for the following countries:
Spain: Turtle work is expanding in terms of numbers of researchers and groups and new work with genetics and telemetry has been initiated.
Italy: Several large, unspecified, projects are underway or planned. There remains a problem with competition among various groups but is not too severe.
Croatia: Satellite telemetry has started in cooperation with Slovenia and Italy. Ten year studies on sea turtle over-wintering, genetics and foraging have been completed and a new exhibition on sea turtles is planned for April 2007.
Greece: A video was shown on the controversial issue at Daphne beach within the boundaries of the National Marine Park of Zakynthos. Illegal buildings started to be erected behind this protected beach in 1984 and now there are about 14 of them. The issue is highly political and the authorities seem unwilling to demolish them. The two options, i.e. demolition of the illegal buildings or incorporation of them in the facilities of the Park, as was done under a pilot scheme in 2006, were presented. Compromise with local owners eventually saw the condition of the nesting beach improve and beach use regulated. Further, summaries of the monitoring and public awareness projects in Greece together with news of expansion of the Rescue Centre at Glyfada and results from the National Stranding Network were presented. The alarming news came from Crete where long-term monitoring data sets show signs of population declines. Taking this example, the value of long-term standardized monitoring projects was highlighted. Lastly it was noted that a draft National Action Plan for the conservation of sea turtles has been submitted to the government.
Turkey: Because of a change in the way that the authorities auction beach monitoring, now new researchers are involved every year who cannot see the year-by-year beach changes. Further, new nesting beaches have been surveyed and national genetic studies for loggerheads and greens have been started. Additionally a National Action Plan has been drafted.
Libya: A video presentation has shown the expanding beach monitoring work. During the video there was a general discussion on the direct take of turtles in Libya and the impact of fisheries on turtles which nest at the northern coasts of the Mediterranean.
Syria: Information was presented that conservation work continues and efforts are underway to create a protected area for the recently discovered green turtle nesting beach near Latakia, but there is opposition from the Ministry of Tourism.

Cooperative projects
The following regional projects were discussed:
Regional genetics: Spanish colleagues are conducting a regional genetics study for the green turtle, into which several Mediterranean countries participate. However, Turkey will be doing a similar national study, undertaken as PhD researches. Then the green turtle findings will be fed into the regional study.
FP7 project: The option for collaboration on an FP7 project was raised. ‘Brain storming’ by email was suggested before more concrete actions be decided at another meeting.
Stable isotopes for green turtles: A suggestion to study food selection of greens from around the Mediterranean requested assistance in obtaining carapace scale samples from stranded green turtles together with Cymodosea nodosa and Posidonia oceanica sea grasses.
Project GloBAL: An international proposal was brought forward to collect bycatch data from across taxa (birds, turtles, mammals) which should result in identification of suitable mitigating measures. This stimulated brief discussion on regional bycatch projects, networking issues and the number of telemetered turtles proven to be caught in fisheries.

Regional Red List Assessments
DM briefly described the situation of the regional red list assessments, which are the first regional ones to be undertaken by the IUCN’s MTSG. The draft for Dermochelys coriacea (assessor: Paolo Casale) has been completed and is currently available on the MTSG website. Andreas Demetropoulos (assessor for Chelonia mydas), not present at the meeting, will provide in the next few months a draft for the green turtle. Bojan Lazar (assessor for Caretta caretta) gave an in-depth presentation of the process for the loggerhead turtle. Discussion followed that included suggestions of comments on non-nesting beach issues, separating the populations in analysis as indicated through genetic analysis and the validity of modelling methods used.

MTSG Med website
Urgent update of the Mediterranean web site (hosted by the MTSG web site) was agreed. Alan Rees was proposed and accepted to undertake this task as the new web-master for the Med MTSG web site, in collaboration with the MTSG Regional Co-Chairs.

Other matters
Brief mention were given to the 3rd Mediterranean Sea Turtle Conference to be hosted in Tunisia, the revision of the UNEP’s RAC/SPA Mediterranean Action Plan for the Conservation of Marine Turtles, and the 14th European Congress of Herpetology held in Portugal in September which will have a special session on sea turtles.

Acknowledgements: We thank (1) all participants for their active involvement, (2) Alan Rees for drafting the minutes, and (3) the Symposium organizers for securing the meeting room and projector.