Few­er leatherback tur­tles are com­ing up to nest on the Grande Riv­iere beach this year com­pared to pre­vi­ous years.

This was con­firmed by tur­tle con­ser­va­tion­ist Len Pe­ters who has been pi­o­neer­ing a con­ser­va­tion­ist pro­gramme at Grande Riv­iere to pro­tect the vul­ner­a­ble tur­tles.

Speak­ing ex­clu­sive­ly to Guardian Me­dia on Sat­ur­day, Pe­ters said he was not wor­ried as de­clin­ing nest­ing num­bers does not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean few­er tur­tles. He said Grande Riv­iere con­tin­ues to pro­vide sta­ble nest­ing for tur­tles, thanks to the ef­forts of vol­un­teers.

Ex­plain­ing the life cy­cle of the ex­tra­or­di­nary an­i­mal, Pe­ters said tur­tles nest every two years and they al­ways re­turn to the same spot to lay their eggs. Since 2018 was a high-den­si­ty nest­ing year, Pe­ters said this could be why 2019 is a low­er den­si­ty nest­ing year.

How­ev­er, he said da­ta has to be col­lat­ed from all 20 nest­ing sites in T&T be­fore a prop­er as­sess­ment of the tur­tle pop­u­la­tion could be made.

Pe­ters, who is the chair­man of the Grande Riv­iere Na­ture Tour Guide As­so­ci­a­tion, al­so said that Grande Riv­iere con­tin­ues to be the high­est den­si­ty nest­ing site for leatherbacks in the world.

"Grand Riv­iere sup­ports one of the most im­por­tant nest­ing colonies in the world. We have a good con­ser­va­tion­ist pro­gramme and we have been do­ing con­ser­va­tion on the beach­es. Tur­tles nest on two to three-year nest­ing cy­cles. Through the na­tion­al mon­i­tor­ing pro­grammes we have a good idea of the nest­ing pop­u­la­tion," Pe­ters said.

He ex­plained that glob­al­ly the leatherback pop­u­la­tion is on the de­cline.

"It has de­clined by four per cent with­in the last ten years. The leatherbacks have been down­grad­ed from be­ing crit­i­cal­ly en­dan­gered to vul­ner­a­ble. The At­lantic pop­u­la­tion is do­ing bet­ter than in oth­er parts of the globe," Pe­ters said.

"The num­ber of tur­tles re­turn­ing to nest is not as sig­nif­i­cant as pre­vi­ous years. In or­der for us to be­come over­ly con­cerned, this low num­ber has to be con­sis­tent. Trinidad is for­tu­nate to be man­ag­ing the ma­jor nest­ing beach­es. In Grande Riv­iere, we have seen sta­ble nest­ing over the years thanks to our own com­mu­ni­ty in­ter­ven­tion. We have seen no sig­nif­i­cant nest­ing de­cline over the years al­though, in 2019, nest­ing is not as dense as oth­er years."

He not­ed that the most num­ber of tur­tles en­coun­tered in one night at Grande Riv­iere was 283.

"We did a cen­sor on the num­bers and for some, that num­ber is a lot but to us, that is a de­cline be­cause at the peak of the sea­son we usu­al­ly see as many as 300 to 500 tur­tles nest­ing on a one-kilo­me­tre stretch in one night. The peak sea­son is from May to June. Tur­tles nest every nine to ten days. They re­turn to lay again in the same beach as many as 11 times al­though they may lay on av­er­age of three to five times," Pe­ters said.

Say­ing this pre­sent­ed enor­mous tourism po­ten­tial for T&T, Pe­ters lament­ed that the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment has not pro­vid­ed as­sis­tance to the con­ser­va­tion­ists who pro­tect the leatherback pop­u­la­tion. He added that cor­po­rate com­pa­nies like Bhp Bil­li­ton and At­lantic have of­fered as­sis­tance. he not­ed that up to 2018, con­ser­va­tion­ist were giv­en aid through the Green Fund grant to col­late da­ta on the tur­tles. How­ev­er, Pe­ters said fund­ing had dried up and the work was to­tal­ly be­ing fi­nanced through com­mu­ni­ty sup­port and vol­un­teerism.

Pe­ters al­so said they were al­so pro­tect­ing oth­er species of tur­tles in­clud­ing the green and hawks­bill tur­tles.

"We en­counter 30,000 leatherback nest­ings dur­ing the pe­ri­od March to Au­gust and dur­ing this pe­ri­od we may get as lit­tle as 20 green and hawks­bill tur­tles. Over the past four years, we have been in­cu­bat­ing the green and hawks­bill tur­tles eggs and rais­ing them in the tank. We share in­for­ma­tion on the tur­tles to the chil­dren."

Pe­ters said any­one want­i­ng to go on tur­tle tours can con­tact the as­so­ci­a­tion at 469-1288.