Michelle Loubon

Beach­es along Trinidad's east coast like Grande Riv­iere, Mathu­ra, Sans Souci, Fish­ing Pond, Guaya­ma, Blan­chisseuse and Madamas beck­on the gi­gan­tic leatherback, green, hawks­bill, log­ger­head and Olive Ri­d­ley tur­tles. Swim­ming grace­ful­ly, the mag­nif­i­cent ma­rine crea­tures fre­quent Mara­cas, Tom­pire, Blan­chisseuse and Pa­tience Bay. The tur­tle nest­ing sea­son opened on March 1, Thurs­day and con­tin­ues un­til the end of Au­gust 31 (In­de­pen­dence Day). In­ter­viewed on Thurs­day, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor for Na­ture Seek­ers Den­nis Sam­my says while poach­ing is down, bi-catch re­mains a prob­lem. He ex­plained while fish­er­men seek to emp­ty the ocean of prized king­fish and carite for the Lenten pe­ri­od, tur­tles of­ten get in­ad­ver­tent­ly caught in their nets. Both fish­er­men and tur­tles end up be­ing sore losers-since the fish­er­man has to cough out dol­lars to re­pair nets which cost as much as $30,000. Tur­tles, which are an en­dan­gered species glob­al­ly, drown. Sam­my said: "Some fish­er­men have been catch­ing tur­tles. Re­cent­ly, a fish­er­man caught three and one died. Bi-catch is a huge prob­lem not just for tur­tles but for Trinidad. It is one of the an­cient species and bi-catch could re­al­ly de­stroy the pop­u­la­tion. When they drown in the nets they are washed ashore from Ma­yaro straight to Matelot."

Less poach­ing

He said: "There isn't sig­nif­i­cant poach­ing on the beach­es. It has to do with the lev­el of aware­ness and ed­u­ca­tion. But there are beach­es where poach­ing takes place and it is dif­fi­cult to keep track." He cit­ed ex­am­ples such as Man­zanil­la's stretch of beau­ti­ful beach, which is fringed by co­conut palms, and Paria Bay which is dif­fi­cult to ac­cess. "Man­zanil­la has a lot of beach to cov­er. Paria is hard­er to mon­i­tor since it hard­ly has peo­ple there to man­age that area. It is a lit­tle out of the way." Among the in­ter­ven­tions he felt would re­duce the prob­lem of bi-catch were pro­mot­ing al­ter­na­tive fish­ing meth­ods and cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to have lines set in the ar­eas where fish­er­men fre­quent. He not­ed fish­er­men were not adamant about work­ing with con­ser­va­tion­ists since "it costs them every time they have to re­pair a net. They would pre­fer if they did not have to cut their nets." Sam­my felt gov­ern­ment should do its part to bet­ter reg­u­late the fish­ing in­dus­try. "If leg­is­la­tion on things like the types of nets are im­ple­ment­ed, then it be­comes a lot eas­i­er," he said.

"Treat tur­tles with re­spect"

Com­ment­ing on the open­ing of tur­tle sea­son, forester Ather­ly Har­ry said spe­cial per­mits would have to be grant­ed to en­ter pro­tect­ed beach­es. They have been nest­ing in T&T since the 17th cen­tu­ry. An­oth­er sig­nif­i­cant fea­ture was tur­tles were mi­gra­to­ry and T&T served as a port-of-call for a few months on­ly. He said: "You would have to get ap­proval...spe­cial per­mits... for ar­eas like Grande Riv­iere and Matu­ra." He ap­pealed to the pub­lic to re­spect and show com­pas­sion for these "an­cient di­nosaurs." Us­ing the anal­o­gy of a ges­tant woman, he said: "I al­ways say to peo­ple to treat the tur­tles, the way you would treat a preg­nant woman. Don't ride on their backs. Leave these mag­nif­i­cent crea­tures alone. T&T is blessed that they come to our shores. They fre­quent beach­es like Gran Tacoreb. Places you didn't dream about. It is im­por­tant we pro­vide a safe haven for them." Tur­tle lovers might be for­tu­nate to see as much as 500 tur­tles on one night dur­ing the peak nest­ing pe­ri­od.

Mooni­lal: "tur­tles are pro­tect­ed species"

In a speech de­liv­ered at San­gre Grande Civic Cen­tre (Feb­ru­ary 26, 2011), he paid ku­dos to the Forestry Di­vi­sion for their ac­tive in­volve­ment. He cit­ed the Con­ser­va­tion Wildlife Act, Chap­ter 67: 01) which con­sid­ers ma­rine tur­tles as pro­tect­ed species. He said: "In the 1980s, they were be­ing slaugh­tered on the east coast at an alarm­ing rate of 30 to 40 per cent. As a re­sult, the Forestry Di­vi­sion through the Wildlife Sec­tion, im­ple­ment­ed pro­tec­tion and con­ser­va­tion ini­tia­tives in an ef­fort to curb the slaugh­ter of these ma­jes­tic ma­rine rep­tiles. The Di­vi­sion be­gan the process of get­ting the nest­ing beach­es of Mathu­ra and Fish­ing Pond de­clared as Pro­hib­it­ed Ar­eas un­der the Forests' Act."

He cit­ed sta­tis­tics which stat­ed "a to­tal of five to 10 leatherback tur­tles are killed an­nu­al­ly on land. An es­ti­mat­ed 10,000 leatherbacks now nest in Trinidad, com­pared to 500 in 1987, which places the pop­u­la­tion as the largest in the West­ern hemi­sphere and per­haps the world."

Matu­ra, com­mu­ni­ties come on­board

Mooni­lal said 1990 was sig­nif­i­cant since three sig­nif­i­cant strides took place-the Forestry Di­vi­sion took the step of seek­ing the as­sis­tance of Matu­ra Com­mu­ni­ty, com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers were em­ployed to pa­trol the beach and tur­tle nest­ing da­ta col­lec­tion be­gan to take shape. He said: "Matu­ra ac­cept­ed the in­vi­ta­tion. Pro­grammes of aware­ness, ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing were im­por­tant steps in en­list­ing sup­port for tur­tle con­ser­va­tion. It led to an eco tourism ini­tia­tive and since 1991, Na­ture Seek­ers be­gan con­duct­ing tours for vis­i­tors at the Matu­ra Beach." Train­ing pro­grammes were ex­tend­ed to Fish­ing Pond and Grande Riv­iere. Among the con­ser­va­tion groups which are in­volved in tur­tle pro­tec­tion are Nar­i­va En­vi­ron­men­tal Trust, Man­a­tee, North Man­zanil­la Vil­lage Coun­cil, Fish­ing Pond Con­ser­va­tion Group, Na­ture Seek­ers, San Souci Wildlife Tours, To­co Foun­da­tion, Grande Riv­iere Na­ture Tour Guide As­so­ci­a­tion, PAWI Sports Club and the Blan­chisseuse En­vi­ron­ment and Art Trust. Mooni­lal fur­ther chal­lenged stake­hold­ers to look af­ter the wel­fare of tur­tles since "the fu­ture of the leatherback tur­tles rests here, and what hap­pens to the T&T pop­u­la­tion will im­pact on the species as a whole." He added since the land con­ser­va­tion ac­tiv­i­ties had been suc­cess­ful to date, it was im­por­tant to con­tin­ue the ef­fort to en­sure tur­tles con­tin­ue to be present on T&T beach­es and ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters for gen­er­a­tions to come. Among those present were Tourism Min­is­ter Dr Ru­pert Grif­fith, An­tho­ny Ram­nar­ine Con­ser­va­tor of Forests and Deputy Con­ser­va­tor of Forests Ken­ny Singh.

Beach clean up at Matu­ra to­day

As tur­tle sea­son gets un­der way, Sam­my said a beach clean up is sched­uled for Matu­ra Beach, at To­co Road. About 1,000 vol­un­teers will lend a help­ing hand to clean about about 5 km of nest­ing beach for the tur­tles. It starts at 7 am till 11.30 am. Apart from the beau­ti­fi­ca­tion works, a "sand tur­tle" com­pe­ti­tion will be held.

Tur­tle watch­ing tips

Keep move­ment to a min­i­mum; so as not to dis­turb tur­tles

Keep a safe dis­tance away as in­di­cat­ed by tour guide

If the tur­tle shows signs of dis­tress, move away at once

No use of flash­lights or flash pho­tog­ra­phy

Al­low hatch­lings to make it to the ocean alone

Wear warm cloth­ing and com­fort­able shoes

Don't light camp­fires, smoke or lit­ter

Don't dri­ve on nest­ing beach­es

Don't stake um­brel­las or oth­er ob­jects on nest­ing beach­es

Avoid dis­turb­ing the eggs or nests

Con­trol dogs on the beach be­cause they dig up nests.

Best prac­tices

Pro­vi­sion of fund­ing to com­mu­ni­ty part­ners; the suc­cess was de­pen­dent on vi­brant com­mu­ni­ty part­ners along the east coast who con­duct suc­cess­ful tour-guid­ing op­er­a­tions on the nest­ing beach­es and in the forests;

Pro­vi­sion of man­pow­er to pa­trol re­spec­tive beach­es for da­ta col­lec­tion;

Pro­tec­tion of the nest­ing fe­male;

Col­lab­o­rat­ing with na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions in the im­ple­men­ta­tion of re­search projects-such as the Con­ven­tion on In­ter­na­tion­al Trade in En­dan­gered Species of Wild Fau­na and Fo­ra (CITES) Con­ven­tion on Bi­o­log­i­cal Di­ver­si­ty, UN Con­ven­tion of the Law of the Sea, Carta­ge­na Con­ven­tion and the West­ern Hemi­sphere Con­ven­tion;

Sav­ing tur­tles, keep­ing fish­er­men's liveli­hoods in­tact;

Eco-Tourism op­por­tu­ni­ties.

About ma­rine tur­tles

Green tur­tles (Ch­e­lo­nia my­das) has a wide dis­tri­b­u­tion in sub­trop­i­cal and trop­i­cal seas world­wide. It is the on­ly her­bivo­rious ma­rine tur­tle with a di­et con­sist­ing main­ly of sea grass­es an al­gae. Pop­u­la­tion sta­tus: oc­ca­sion­al.

Hawks­bill (Eretmochelys im­bri­ca­ta) is a trop­i­cal species liv­ing near coral reefs. It is rarely seen in tem­per­ate wa­ters. The main rea­son for its de­cline has been cen­turies of trade in tor­toise shell. This trade is now il­le­gal but there is still a strong de­mand for tor­toise shell prod­ucts par­tic­u­lar­ly in Asia. Pop­u­la­tion sta­tus: Abun­dant.

Leatherback tur­tles (Der­mochelys cor­i­cacea) are the largest of the ma­rine tur­tles. It can reach a cara­pace length of 1.5 me­tres and a weight of 480 kg. It is one of the heav­i­est rep­tiles in Trinidad wa­ters. Pop­u­la­tion sta­tus: Abun­dant.

Log­ger­head tur­tles (Caret­ta caret­ta) is a large species with a red-brown cara­pace. Com­pared to oth­er ma­rine tur­tles, the head is much larg­er in re­la­tion to body size, ac­com­mo­dat­ing pow­er­ful jaws. Log­ger­head tur­tles are found around the world in warm tem­per­ate and trop­i­cal wa­ters. Pop­u­la­tion sta­tus: Rare.

Olive Ri­d­ley (Lep­i­dochelys oli­vacea) tur­tles are the small­est of the ma­rine tur­tles and is prob­a­bly the most abun­dant. It is nev­er­the­less con­sid­ered to be en­dan­gered and suf­fers the same gen­er­al threats as oth­er ma­rine tur­tles. Pop­u­la­tion sta­tus: Rare.

(In­for­ma­tion cour­tesy Forestry Di­vi­sion of T&T)

More in­fo

Per­mits can be pur­chased at Forestry Di­vi­sion

Long Cir­cu­lar Road: 622-7476

San Fer­nan­do: 657-7357

San­gre Grande: 668-3825