Biggest nesting season in recorded history
Alan Geere Editor-in-chief
Trinidad ExpressSunday, May 20th 2007
MONSTER FROM THE DEEP: A giant leatherback turtle struggles up the sand looking for the ideal spot to lay her eggs on the beach at Grande Riviere. Look out! The turtles are coming and coming and comng...
This is set to be a record year for nesting leatherback turtles on the coast of northern and eastern Trinidad with as many as 7,000 females expected to come ashore.
On just one beach, Grande Riviere, conservationists counted 388 nesting on one night earlier this month and now expect this to surpass the previously unthinkable total of 500 laying females.
"This is an amazing year. The biggest nesting season on record. The turtles are big and robust and we are thrilled to see so many on the beaches," said Scott Eckert, a conservation biologist widely recognised for his pioneering research on turtles.
Eckert is director of science for the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network (WIDECAST) and a regular visitor to Trinidad over the past 20 years from his base at Duke University in the United States.
"Trinidad is so magical. It has an incredibly well-managed programme which is one reason why the turtles are thriving."
The giant creatures, which can reach 180 cms in length and weigh 500 kgs, leave their natural habitat of the deep ocean to lay their eggs in the soft, warm sand of Trinidad's beaches.
With their strong flippers they dig a hole around 80cms deep and lay up to 85 round eggs, the size of a small orange.
Carol Philips of Diego Martin, visiting the beach for the first time, was captivated by what she saw. "It is a very humbling experience to see these magnificent creatures at close quarters. And to think that this has been going on for millions of years, puts us humans in our place."
Philips was also able to see the next stage of the process when the hatchlings scrambled up through the sand and set off on the dangerous journey across the beach to the ocean. These tiny young emerged around 60 days after the eggs were laid.
"I found a tiny hatchling-it was brown and fitted perfectly in to the palm of my hand-heading the wrong way up the beach. I picked it up and took it to the guide. He told me to face it in the right direction but to put it on the beach not in the sea as it needed to find its own way or it would not be able to return," she said.
With 6-7,000 turtles off the coast laying an average of six clutches of 85 viable eggs, just over three million eggs will be laid in Trinidad sand.
And with the survival rate of one in a thousand, 3,000 leatherbacks will make it to adulthood.
Nadra Nathai-Gyan head of the Wildlife Section in the Trinidad and Tobago Forestry Division is pleased to see 20 years of effort paying off in such a spectacular way. Previously, the species was threatened by poachers.
"This has been a genuine community-based conservation project," she said. "The patrols and guides are local people who are trained and accredited and the way the community has bought into the project has made it such a success."
The turtles can be found on beaches from Manzanilla in the east to Blanchisseuse in the north, but Nathai-Gyan stresses that everyone must have a Forestry Division permit before going on the beach. These are available from Forestry Division offices and the visitor centre in Grande Riviere.
