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Marine Turtle Newsletter Marine Turtle Newsletter Number 41 September 1987 Editor: Nat B. Frazer Department of Biology Mercer University 1400 Coleman Avenue Macon, GA 31207 USA Associate Editor: John P. Eylers Editorial Board: Peter C. H. Pritchard, Anders G. J. Rhodin, Harold F. Hirth, N. Mrosovsky REPORT FROM OROLUK Oroluk is a low coral atoll in the Caroline Islands in the mid-Pacific region. It is located about 1600 km ESE of Guam and about 300 km east from Pohnpei Island. This small island (18 hectares) historically has had large numbers of nesting green turtles, and Pritchard (1977) felt Oroluk was the most important nesting ground in the state. From June through July 1985 and May through August 1986 turtles were tagged and their activities watched. The arrival of turtle project personnel on Oroluk in May 1986 was a sad day for them. The residents of the island (7 people) killed three female turtles and cooked turtle eggs to take with them on the field trip ship back to Pohnpei. Project staff also found that two turtles tagged in May 1985 were eaten in August of the same year. During the 1986 period, some preliminary work was done to protect two nests with wire cages and to look at hatching success. Humerus bones were collected, and forwarded to Dr. George Balazs of US National Marine Fisheries Service in Honolulu. So far, one turtle tagged during the project has been seen elsewhere. A 99 cm female was tagged while nesting on Oroluk 2 June 1986 and laid 72 eggs. The turtle was captured alive in Nan- Way Bay in Taiwan on 18 April 1987. It should be noted that for 1985 observations, turtle nesting averaged 2.3 nests/month, and in 1986, 3.4 nests/month were seen. This is considerably fewer than the 9-15 nests per night reported by Pritchard (1977). We do not know if the current nesting pattern has two peaks in December-January and June-July as has been reported. Nesting (maybe some false crawls) is reported by Oroluk residents all year round. By law, FSM citizens are allowed to take green turtles greater than 34 inches except during June-August and December-January, but commercial sales are illegal. The impact on the turtles by the residents of Oroluk is certainly great. Changing technology has also resulted in making catching turtles easier (McCoy 1974, 1981). Other people (from Truk and Pohnpei, for example) now have boats which can easily go to Oroluk to fish and possibly take turtles and turtle eggs. There have also been reports of dynamite fishing off the atoll reefs. At the end of the 1986 project, workers made several recommendations to Pohnpei State government about the turtles of Oroluk. The sandy beach facing the ocean should be left out for turtle nesting ground and houses and pig pens moved inland. Pigs and dogs should be kept in fences or tied up. A proposal is being made to make Oroluk a sanctuary for wildlife, but state finances are very limited. Funding for the turtle tagging project has been irregular. The past two years the project has been funded by Pohnpei Economic Development Authority, Pohnpei Marine Resources Division, a private grant from Ms. Donna Matson (Western Instructional Television, Los Angeles), and organized by Teresa Herring, a US Peace Corps volunteer. While a proposal to establish monitoring has been made, no funding has been granted for 1987. Attempts are also being made to make Oroluk a marine sanctuary (including seabirds and turtles). Project workers are continuing to seek sources of funding for the project, as well as for educational materials which can be used for turtle conservation education. TABLE 1. JUNE '85 JULY '85 Turtles Tagged 2 2 Tagged Turtle Nests 1 2 Tagged False Crawls 2 TABLE 2. April '86 May '86 June '86 July '86 August '86 Turtles Tagged 1 5 3 2 0 Tagged Turtle Nests 0 2 8 2 1 Tagged False Crawls 1 4 1 3 0 McCoy, M. A. 1974 Man and turtle in the central Carolines. Micronesica 10 (2) McCoy, M. A. 1981 Subsistence hunting of turtles in the western Pacific; The Caroline Islands. In Biology and Conservation of Sea Turtles, K. A. Bjorndal, ed., Washington D.C.; Smithsonian Institution Press. Pritchard, P. C. 1977 Marine Turtles of Micronesia San Francisco; Chelonia Press CLAY EDSON and FLINN CURREN, Marine Resources Division, P.O. Box B, Kolonia, Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia 96941 2 REPORT ON 6th CITES MEETING, OTTAWA, JULY 1987 Several items concerning sea turtles arose at the 6th meeting of the parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) held recently in Ottawa. 1. Japan has withdrawn its reservation on green turtles. This means that the commercial import of green turtle products became illegal in Japan. The Japanese reservation on hawksbill turtles remains. However, the delegation from Japan said that they had in effect an annual import quota of 30 tonnes of shell (which represents about 28,000 hawksbills) and that there was no plan to increase this quota. The Japanese turtle shell industry is interested in the possibility of developing hawksbill turtle ranches to supply its markets. 2. Proposals for downlisting of the Indonesian populations of green and hawksbill turtles from Appendix 1 to II were withdrawn by Indonesia before being debated. The next CITES meeting will be in Indonesia in 1989. It is quite likely that Indonesia will prepare more extensive proposals for discussion then. 3. The proposal from France for downlisting to Appendix 11 the green sea turtle populations of the islands of Europa and Tromelin in the Indian Ocean was rejected in a secret ballot ( 37 against, 14 in favor, and 5 abstentions). Because of complex understandings with the European Economic Community (EEC), no members of the EEC can cast a vote, and France was unable to vote for its own proposal! The biological aspects of this ranching proposal were, on the whole, considered acceptable; the marking system for identifying the products from the ranch had been approved previously by the CITES Technical Committee. However, the matter of alleged infractions by France of CITES regulations was repeatedly raised during the debate, and was a major factor in the rejection of the proposal. 4. The conference passed a resolution requesting lUCN to convene a meeting of specialists in marine turtle biology, trade controls, and ranching, to prepare guidelines for evaluating marine turtle ranching. It is possible that such a meeting might take place in late January 1988 before the IUCN general assembly in Costa Rica. Among the reasons for holding a meeting are feelings that turtle ranching has not been handled adequately by CITES (see MTN 25:6-9 and 33:1-2 for reports on previous meetings), that the situation created by the Japanese hawksbill trade requires urgent attention, and that it would be desirable for people with different viewpoints to attempt to discover if it were possible to make any accommodations leading to a more united attack on problem areas in sea turtle conservation. N. MROSOVSKY, Department of Zoology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1, CANADA MEXICAN HAWKSBILL PROJECT, 1985-1986 REPORT During 1982 and 1983, with funding from the WATS 1 program, two flights were made along the east coast of Mexico, from Matamoros to Cheturnal. The surveys revealed several areas of important nesting, particularly in the states of Campeche and Yucatán, pertaining especially to hawksbill and green turtles. In both states there had been a traditional sea turtle fishery, specifically for the use of the meat of the green turtle and the shell of the hawksbill. Nowadays the catch of both species is prohibited; however, stuffed juvenile hawksbills and handcrafted objects of tortoiseshell are still sold to tourists in reduced quantities. The Instituto Nacional de la Pesca is the Federal agency that, through its National Sea Turtle Research Project, undertakes all stock assessments for sea turtles in Mexico. Protection of the nesting beaches is accomplished with the assistance of cooperative fishermen, university students, fisheries 3 inspectors, and marines. This program has taken place in Campeche and Yucatán for several years with some success and with the following annual results (Table 1). TABLE 1. Eggs translocated to the corrals and hatchlings obtained and released on the beaches. _______Campeche_______ _______Yucatán________ Year Eggs Hatchlings Eggs Hatchlings 1980 -- -- -- -- 9,000 6,000 1981 2,304 6,119 15,000 11,000 1982 11,840 5,842 21,000 16,000 1983 2,000 1,340 17,500 11,000 1984 19,379 16,930 15,545 7,520 [ For both localities, the average of green turtle eggs varies between 10-30% of the total collected. The data for Yucatán, up to 1983, were obtained from the fisheries inspectors and are approximations. ] Since 1984, all work has been carried out by staff of the Instituto Nacional de Pesca. Results of the 1985 and 1986 seasons are detailed below. Campeche The nesting beach extends from Isla del Cármen in the west to Sabancuy in the east. During the surveys more than 40 km are covered. The surveys and nest collection began in April and continued until September. Personnel arrived on the beach by boat and the eggs were collected and incubated in styrofoam boxes, as predation and poaching on the beach are too heavy to risk leaving all nests in situ. Table 2 shows the accomplishments for 1985 and 1986. TABLE 2. Eggs and hatchlings obtained in Isla Aguada turtle camp, Campeche. _____Eretmochelys____ _____Chelonia______ 1985 1986 1985 1986 Nests translocated 124 149 69 79 Eggs protected 17,229 22,554 7,280 6,367 Hatchlings released 9,779 14,290 5,018 5,164 Tags in adults 5 0 3 0 Known depredated nests 142 ? 33 ? Nests left in situ 182 42 43 23 4 During the nesting season, we monitored temperatures on the beach profile and in the boxes.
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