Tuesdays with Turtles – Hatcheries

Byoliveridley

A little old, but turns out that the WWF is establishing a hatchery for Olive Ridley sea turtles in Orissa.

WWF-India comes with artificial hatchery for Olive Ridley eggs – Newindpress.com

Large-scale destruction of Olive Ridley eggs at nesting sites in the State’s coast has prompted WWF-India to come with an artificial hatchery. It would also double up as a hatching protection centre. The artificial hatchery has been established near mouth of Rushikulya river where WWF-India staff have stored a large number of Olive Ridley eggs along with the arrangements for safe hatching. Last month alone, 116 nests were safeguarded and around 13,000 Olive Ridley eggs were stored in the artificial hatchery. Till end of the week, more than 2,000 eggs have hatched, chairman of WWF-India, Orissa State Committee Saroj Kumar Patnaik said.

Hatcheries become necessary when the natural habitat can no longer be protected. The biggest advantage of a hatchery is the fact that once the eggs are relocated, they are now safe from poaching/predation. But, there are some disadvantages including the resources needed, the possible overcrowding effects if the hatcheries are not well designed, etc. Luckily, there are good resources available for building and managing a good hatchery. With the WWF’s funding and experience, I am sure it will be a very well managed hatchery.

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Tuesdays with Turtles -Thursday Edition – Pacific Leatherbacks in Trouble

Byoliveridley

Personal Note
I swear, this blog has gone to pot. Either I’ve been too busy at work (yes, that does not explain everything), or I have not been thinking enough. I started this blog so that when I saw something interesting, I would have to think a little bit, and gather some information to write about what I saw/read. Apparently, I don’t read/see any more (which is not true), I don’t think any more (possible), or I am too lazy to spend enough time thinking to throw a coherent blog post together.

This has got to stop, and it stops right now!!
End Personal Note
Back to the topic on hand…

The Pacific Leatherback is in serious trouble and is slated to go extinct soon.

ENN News Network

Experts at the Bellagio Sea Turtle Conservation Initiative have just concluded a conference to save the imperiled Pacific leatherback sea turtle from extinction. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) has classified Pacific leatherbacks as critically endangered.

The meeting convened an internationally diverse group of scientists, conservationists, economists, fund-raisers and policy makers. One focus was the development of immediate actions to boost hatchling production of the Western Pacific nesting populations by protecting nests from predation, beach erosion and human consumption on the beaches of Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Vietnam and Malaysia. Although there are still hundreds of turtles nesting, with 75 percent in one area on the north coast of Papua (Indonesia), researchers are concerned by new information indicating that the majority of nests laid are not producing hatchlings. Some simple procedures have been developed to improve hatch success, and applying these techniques now may ensure the populations are sustained in the future.

Some radical measures have been suggested, including cloning. Well, highly unlikely. Jurassic Park horrors and ethical dilemmas aside, cloning reptiles ain’t so easy.

What ails the Pacific Leatherback? Their numbers have dropped from 115000 reproductive females to less than 3000. This news release from a 2004 conference has more. But the usual suspects are destruction of nesting habitats, long line fishing, egg poaching, and to a more uncertain degree, climate change.

It’s depressing, I’ve never seen a leatherback, I guess I need to get on the case and see one before they disappear for ever.

Small-Scale Fisheries Bycatch Jeopardizes Loggerheads

Byoliveridley

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This is almost a 1000 juveniles killed in a year in Baja California alone. The authors mention that over 99% of all fisherpeople are employed in small scale fisheries, which surprised me.

PLoS ONE: Small-Scale Fisheries Bycatch Jeopardizes Endangered Pacific Loggerhead Turtles:

Although bycatch of industrial-scale fisheries can cause declines in migratory megafauna including seabirds, marine mammals, and sea turtles, the impacts of small-scale fisheries have been largely overlooked. Small-scale fisheries occur in coastal waters worldwide, employing over 99% of the world’s 51 million fishers. New telemetry data reveal that migratory megafauna frequent coastal habitats well within the range of small-scale fisheries, potentially producing high bycatch. These fisheries occur primarily in developing nations, and their documentation and management are limited or non-existent, precluding evaluation of their impacts on non-target megafauna.

This is a surprising and unexpected finding because you would expect smaller fishing boats to have smaller impacts. I guess smaller scale fishing fleets in Mexico (and other developing nations) have not been targeted for education, awareness and enforcement of turtle safe fishing practices.

The good news from the study is that a major source of mortality has been identified and the authors point to recent efforts to increase awareness in the community about turtle safe fishing. But it will be a long and hard fight to be tackled all over the world.

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Fishing Major threat to Turtles

Byoliveridley

Well, not the least bit surprising, sea turtles have always been very difficult to track, and we’re finally getting verification that, gasp, turtles’ lives cannot be described in simple juvenile = open sea, adult = coast behavior.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Fishing ‘major threat’ to turtles

Until now scientists have believed that young turtles live in the open ocean, but change to a coastal habitat when they reach a certain size.

But researchers working in Cape Verde found that most adults nesting there retain their open water behaviour, with the attendant risk posed by longline boats.

“The bottom line is that we thought juveniles experienced this risk out in the open ocean with longline fisheries,” said Brendan Godley from the University of Exeter.

“We thought that if you got them past that, then unless they’re being taken by inshore fisheries, you’re OK,” he told the BBC News website.

“But now you’ve got adults exposed to longline fisheries, which is very worrying.”

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Killer nets reinstated

Byoliveridley

Council Decisions: March 2006

Drift Gillnet Management

The Council adopted a recommendation to NMFS to authorize an exempted fishing permit (EFP) that would allow drift gillnet fishing in the current August 15-November 15 closed area. The EFP fishery would be governed by several requirements for all vessels, including, to carry an observer; to limit total fishing effort in the EFP fishery to 300 sets; to immediately cease the EFP fishery if, and when, two leatherback sea turtles were encountered by the fishing gear; and to immediately cease the EFP fishery if one mortality or serious injury occurred to any of the following marine mammals: short-finned pilot whale, sperm whale, fin whale, gray whale, humpback whale, or minke whale.

And, with that, starts the rather egregious practice of drift gillnet fishing. The restrictions seem fairly tight, an observer on every boat, and end to the fishery after two incidences of capture. There is definitely more than meets the eye here, I don’t know what. Drift gillnet fishing is well documented to cause turtle catch, this from the 1998 Fishery Bulletin for 1990-1995

In the drift gillnet fishery, seven out of 387 mammals observed entangled were released alive. In the set gillnet fishery, five out of 1,263 mammals observed entangled were released alive. Estimates of incidental kill are presented along with estimates of entanglement for species that were observed to be released alive. For the period under consideration, the estimated mortality for the drift gillnet fishery was over 450 marine mammals each year. A total of 20 turtles and 3 seabirds were observed entangled during the entire period. The most frequently entangled species in this fishery were common dolphins, Delphinus spp., and northern elephant seals, Mirounga angustirostris. Estimated cetacean mortality in the driftnet fishery decreased from 650 in 1991 to 417 in 1995; pinniped mortality decreased from 173 in 1991 to 116 in 1995. Estimated cetacean mortality in the set gillnet fishery ranged from a high of 38 in 1991 to a low 14 in 1993; pinniped mortality rose to a high of 4,777 in 1992 and then decreased to 1,016 in 1995. We postulate that there has been a decline in the number of pinnipeds and cetaceans in the setnet fishery owing to area closure. No similar proposal can be made for the driftnet fishery. The most frequently entangled mammals in the setnet fishery were California sea lions, Zalophus californianus, and harbor seals, Phoca vitulina. Six turtles and 1,018 seabirds were estimated entangled in this fishery during the NMFS Observer Program from July 1990 to December 1995.

So what’s the deal, this thing caught 20 turtles in 5 years, so it is going to catch turtles, no doubt about it. Anyone who does not get what the death of one adult sea turtle means read this. Sea turtles are wonderfully fragile animals given their size, they take long to mature sexually, they do not breed all that much and less than 1% of turtle hatchlings survive to adulthood. Leatherbacks are highly endangered.

I have a feeling that this is the first part of a one-two punch intended to reinstate the famed turtle killer long line swordfish nets on the pacific coast. The “proof” that these nets do not catch turtles will be used to lobby for longline swordfishing in, oh say three months?