Poaching an Increasing Threat for Tortuguero Green Turtles
By Sue Ellen Smith
Turtle poaching may be on the rise in Tortuguero, Costa Rica, according
to accounts from scientists and research assistants responsible for collecting
data during Caribbean Conservation Corporation's 1996 Green Turtle Program.
In the last few years, it was all too common for researchers and program
participants to come back from tagging during the nesting season with stories
of possible turtle poaching. However, poacher activity may have escalated
in 1996.
"At its worst three or four nights a week, someone would have a
story about poaching," said Kristin Caruso, a 1996 research assistant
who is now on staff with the Florida Marine Research Institute.
Frequently, researchers and participants came up on evidence of turtle
poaching. On a few instances, research assistants found turtles that had
been flipped on their backs so that poachers could pick them up later.
When discovered, the turtles were turned back over by research assistants,
and watched until they safely returned to the ocean.
Poachers even tried to fool researchers by making fake return turtle
tracks in the sand so that it appeared a turtle had come up on the beach,
nested, and returned to the ocean, when in fact it had been snatched from
its nesting site and dragged through the forest. These incidents, reminiscent
of poacher activities in the 1960s when Costa Rica was trying to enforce
new turtle protection laws, suggest that poaching is on the rise.
Many times researchers discovered long pieces of bamboo or logs stuck
in the sand that were marking turtle nests so that poachers could find
the nests in the daylight and remove the freshly laid eggs. In other instances
they found evidence of sticks being pushed through the sand in attempts
to find egg chambers.
"It was so obvious that along with turtles, eggs were being poached
as well," Caruso said.
Tortuguero Village, which has traditionally relied on turtle meat and
eggs for food, can get a permit to take a few turtles every month. Researchers
do not know if the turtles taken over the legal limit remained in the village
or were shipped elsewhere. The curse of being a delicious and easily taken
food source has nearly driven green turtles to extinction, which is why
the species is now protected in many countries. The penalties for poaching
are not strictly enforced in Tortuguero and do little to discourage repeat
offenders.
The increased poaching at Tortuguero is particularly bad news to scientists
and turtle conservationists because the Tortuguero green turtle population
is also being affected by the harvesting of green turtles over the legal
limit in Limon and higher poaching along the Miskito Coast in Nicaragua.
Because CCC is a scientific organization, it has no enforcement authority
in Tortuguero to stop poaching. Researchers rely on the Tortuguero park
rangers to enforce poaching laws. However, last year CCC researchers and
park rangers did devise a system for signaling poaching trouble using flashlights.
The system worked a few times, but was generally ineffective due to the
length of the beach and too few rangers. CCC hopes to provide researchers
with radios for the 1997 Green Turtle Program, which starts in July, to
improve communication between researchers on the beach and park rangers
and increase the response time of rangers to trouble spots.
Probably the best way to turn the tide on poachers would be for the
Costa Rican government to hire more rangers to patrol the beach during
nesting season. Last year there were usually only two rangers on the beach
at any one time. With more rangers on duty, researchers believe, the beaches
would be patrolled adequately and poachers would have a more difficult
time. Unfortunately, the Costa Rican government's budget for park personnel
is inadequate. CCC is looking into the problem and hopes to be able to
provide some solutions.
1996 Green Turtle Program report finished
Researchers tagged 1,395 new turtles during CCC's 1996 Green Turtle
Program in Tortuguero and observed 315 turtles tagged in previous years,
completing the 41st year of monitoring. CCC recently released the program's
1996 final report, which was produced by Research Coordinator Dr. Roldán
Valverde.
Five-mile and 22-mile track surveys were a component of last year's
program. Five-mile surveys were concentrated on the northernmost section
of the beach, while 22-mile surveys included the entire beach. A total
of 4,407 turtle tracks were recorded during the season last year. Of these,
50% corresponded to successful nesting whereas the rest appeared to be
unsuccessful. The 22-mile track surveys found a total of 11,297 tracks
during the season, with 46% corresponding to successful nesting and the
remainder to unsuccessful nesting.
New database interface useful for 1996 program
A new database interface created by Dr. Valverde and programmer Mark
Babbe proved to be an important research tool during CCC's 1996 Green Turtle
Program. Dr. Valverde used the interface to demonstrate that artificial
lighting from Tortuguero Village is not responsible for the consistently
low nesting numbers observed in front of the village. Dr. Valverde was
able to generate graphs to show that turtle nesting has been low in that
area since well before electricity was introduced to Tortuguero suggesting
that the current low nesting is not caused by artificial lighting. These
findings also demonstrate that tourism is not the cause of depressed nesting
near the village because the phenomenon of low nesting can be seen in the
data since before tourists began regularly visiting Tortuguero. The most
likely explanation for the low nesting numbers is that villagers have harvested
turtles there for many years. Dr. Valverde suggested further studies be
conducted so that recommendations can be made to manage the area in front
of the village as well as other areas on the beach where commercial lodges
or other developments have been placed.
Another important benefit of the new database interface was that for
the first time CCC scientists could easily and quickly share their research
findings with Tortuguero Park officials, a breakthrough that will prove
invaluable to CCC's conservation efforts.
Interested in CCC's Green Turtle Program? Visit CCC's Participant Research Programs or call CCC at 1-800-678-7853 for more information.
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