Boa Vista Experience

turtlefoundation · Joined: 24 Nov 2008 Posts: 13 Location: worldwide

Hi all,
It is several weeks into the nesting season and Turtle Foundation personnel, volunteers, and local soldiers have been very busy. Turtle Foundation is active in patrolling and protecting beaches at Norte Beach, Canto Beach, Lacacao and Curral Vento. There have been 2 reported killings so far at Lacacao, a difficult place to protect as there is a construction project there with many workers and others staying there, allowing easy access to the turtles. The disturbance from the construction and the lights are also a problem for the nesting turtles, and the lights in particular will be a problem for the hatchlings when they emerge, as it draws the hatchlings in the wrong direction.
For more updates and information, check Turtle Foundation's Blog on our website at http://www.turtle-foundation.org/NewsWeblog/tabid/70/EntryID/120/Default.aspx

And please leave messages for Joana and Christian and Astrid and Mathias and the soldiers - it is always nice to hear from the outside that people know and care what is going on. I'm sure they'd appreciate the encouragement! Thanks!
Reisa Latorra
Turtle Foundation
_________________
"And turtles, of course, all the turtles are free
As turtles, and maybe, all creatures should be"

jak · Senior Member Joined: 19 Oct 2007 Posts: 709

Between early June and the present, the period corresponding to the beginning of the nesting season for sea turtles, NGO Natura 2000 has identified 75 cases of turtles killed on the beaches of the island of Boa Vista.

The institutions aiming to protect sea turtles continue to come up against a time-tested tradition on the island of Boa Vista, where turtle meat is considered a delicacy. This week alone, Natura 2000 found heads and flippers of 17 freshly-killed turtles, in addition to older shells, in the Boa Esperança district in the north of the island.

Nearby, the NGO also came across a live turtle that was about to be killed, but was unable to identify the perpetrators of the environmental crime. Six shells were found on Varandinha beach, as well as three on Lacacão.

So far this year, Natura 2000 has identified a total of 75 turtles killed solely on the beaches on which it carries out surveillance. The numbers reveal that nothing has changed since last year, when the NGO counted 74 of the animals killed in June and July.

During the 2008 nesting period, some 400 sea turtles were killed on the beaches of Boa Vista, fewer than half of all the deaths registered in 2007, when a total of 1,100 sea turtles were known to have been killed. This drop in numbers is due, in part, to the fact that fewer turtles came ashore on Boa Vista last year, as nesting peaks occur on a bi-annual basis.

Natura 2000 hopes to reduce these figures, but is aware that this will not be an easy task. “We believe we’ll be able to bring it down this year, but we’re aware that it will be difficult. We’re still seeing large numbers of deaths of the species,” affirms Natura 2000 general secretary Helene Abelha.

But the figures, stresses Abelha, “refer only to the turtles killed on the beaches, and which we identify by the number of carcasses we find. We don’t count those caught on the high seas by fishermen, of which there are large numbers as well.”

These killings on the beaches, says the NGO, are being carried out, in the case of Lacacão, by personnel working on the construction of a hotel owned by Spanish chain Riu and by residents of the villages close to the beach.

“We have to fight against a custom of the island that resists disappearing. People have to become aware that loggerhead turtles are in a critical period of the extinction process, which means that killing one animal that reproduces is tantamount to condemning the future of the species, which could completely disappear in as little as 30 years,” said Abelha.

Natura 2000 recently recovered two year-old turtles from captivity in a home where they were being raised as pets. In a symbolic act, the two turtles were returned to the sea on Tuesday, July 21, by children involved in the Boa Vista Environment Club.

According to Cape Verdean law, “the capture, sale, possession, transportation for sale and consumption of the meat of sea turtles constitute crimes.” “The possession of any body part [of sea turtles], such as shells, egg shells and genital organs,” is also a crime.

A Semana

andre · Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:02 pm Post subject:

Not good news at all! The present economic crisis will not help! When you could be going hungry you forget that Caretta caretta are an endangered species. Being isolated at Lucacao with no real amenities, the attraction of turtle meat must be great!!

Trusting that all turtle protection agencies have a successful season of curtailment.

Andre