Mexico Baby Turtles Thriving as Poachers Kept Out

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Mexico Baby Turtles Thriving as Poachers Kept Out

 

October 27, 2005 — By Catherine Bremer, Reuters

MEXICO CITY — About 13 million endangered Olive Ridley turtles have hatched on

Mexico's Pacific beaches and scuttled safely into the sea so far this year,

protected from poachers by armed guards deployed by the government,

environmentalists said Tuesday.

 

While only 13,000 of those will live to adulthood and breed, biologists say the

numbers are on par with 2004 and show they are winning the battle in Mexico,

where men gulp down raw turtle eggs with salt and lime juice as a supposed

aphrodisiac.

 

" It's a good figure. We can't consider them out of danger yet, but they are

recovering, " said Cuauhtemoc Penaflores at the Mexican Turtle Center in the

Pacific coast Oaxaca state.

 

" We're only halfway through the season so there will be a lot more turtles

hatching. But the important thing is the action of human predators on the

beaches has diminished, " he said.

 

Mexico is home to half a dozen types of sea turtle. The International Union for

Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources lists the Olive Ridley as

endangered, or facing a very high rate of extinction in the wild in the near

future.

 

Hundreds of thousands of females come ashore each year to lay their eggs on the

beaches where they were born.

 

But after surviving natural predators, bad weather, fishing nets and

contamination, hundreds fall prey to poachers who cut out their eggs for sale as

an illegal delicacy.

 

The government stepped up protection for the turtles in August by sending two

Navy ships to Escobilla beach, Mexico's top nesting ground, after poachers

bludgeoned and chopped up some 80 turtles to steal their eggs.

 

Guarding nests, and sometimes taking eggs away to safety, has helped Olive

Ridleys make a comeback. Last year 33 million were born in Mexico.

 

Each newborn takes 10-15 years to reach adulthood, and biologists say it will

take years to stabilize the population.

 

" In the two main beaches we have had complete success, no nests have been

robbed, " said Luis Fueyo, director of marine resources at environmental

protection agency Profepa.

 

" It's still happening at smaller beaches, where we are less able to protect

them, but it's less all the time. There will always be a demand that feeds

hunting but the trend is toward local communities defending their beaches. "

 

Recent anti-poaching posters featured scantily clad women saying their men

didn't need turtle eggs to be potent.

 

Biologists in Mexico are also working to boost numbers of the much larger

Hawksbill turtle and the huge Leatherback, which grows to 8 feet and weighs

nearly a ton.

 

" The task will be won once we see a firm recovery in the six species. Right now

we have the Olive Ridley growing, the Black Sea Turtle and Loggerhead stable,

and the Leatherback, Hawksbill and Kemp's Ridley still in a critical state, "

Fueyo said.

 

Source: Reuters

 

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The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain

other

sets of people are human: Aldous Huxley