Marine Turtle Newsletter Issue Number 127 April 2010 Hawksbill hatchlings running towards the sea after emerging at dawn on Playa Sardinera, Mona Island, Puerto Rico (photo: R. van Dam). SPECIAL ISSUE: MARINE TURTLES IN THE CARIBBEAN Guest Editors: Robert Van Dam & Julia Horrocks Articles Editorial: Marine Turtles of the Wider Caribbean Region................................................................................KL Eckert Twelve Years of Monitoring Hawksbill Nests at Jardines de la Reina Archipelago, Cuba..................FG Moncada et al. Leatherback Nest Distribution and Beach Erosion Pattern at Levera Beach, Grenada ..........................KA Maison et al. Influence of Lunar, Tidal and Nocturnal Phases on the Nesting Activity of Leatherbacks in Tobago............A Law et al. In-water Observations of Hawksbill and Green Turtles in St. Kitts ...............................................R Stimmelmayr et al. Monitoring Antigua’s Hawksbills: A Population Update from More than Two Decades of Saturation Tagging at Jumby Bay.......................................................S Stapleton et al. Caribbean Leatherbacks: Results of Nesting Seasons from 1984-2008 at Culebra Island, Puerto Rico......CE Diez et al. Loggerhead Turtles in the Turks and Caicos Islands.............................................................................TB Stringell et al. Hawksbill Tagged as a Juvenile in Puerto Rico Found Nesting in Panama 15 Years Later.................CO Espinosa et al. Suzie the Green Turtle: 6,000 Kilometres for One Clutch of Eggs?.................................................PB Richardson et al. Meeting Report IUCN-MTSG Quarterly Report Book Reviews Recent Publications Marine Turtle Newsletter No. 127, 2010 - Page 1 ISSN 0839-7708 Editors: Managing Editor: Lisa M. Campbell Matthew H. Godfrey Michael S. Coyne Nicholas School of the Environment NC Sea Turtle Project SEATURTLE.ORG and Earth Sciences, Duke University NC Wildlife Resources Commission 1 Southampton Place 135 Duke Marine Lab Road 1507 Ann St. Durham, NC 27705, USA Beaufort, NC 28516 USA Beaufort, NC 28516 USA Email: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] Fax: +1 252-504-7648 Fax: +1 919 684-8741 Founding Editor: Nicholas Mrosovsky University of Toronto, Canada Editorial Board: Brendan J. Godley & Annette C. Broderick (Editors Emeriti) Nicolas J. Pilcher University of Exeter in Cornwall, UK Marine Research Foundation, Malaysia George H. Balazs Manjula Tiwari National Marine Fisheries Service, Hawaii, USA National Marine Fisheries Service, La Jolla, USA Alan B. Bolten ALan Rees University of Florida, USA University of Exeter in Cornwall, UK Robert P. van Dam Kartik Shanker Chelonia, Inc. Puerto Rico, USA Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India Angela Formia Oğuz Türkozan University of Florence, Italy Adnan Menderes University, Turkey Colin Limpus Jeanette Wyneken Queensland Turtle Research Project, Australia Florida Atlantic University, USA MTN Online - The Marine Turtle Newsletter is available at the MTN web site: <http://www.seaturtle.org/mtn/>. Subscriptions and Donations - Subscriptions and donations towards the production of the MTN should be made online at <http://www.seaturtle. org/mtn/> or c/o SEATURTLE.ORG (see inside back cover for details). We are grateful to our major donors: Marine© Turtle Marine Newsletter Turtle No. Newsletter 127, 2010 - Page 1 Guest Editorial: Marine Turtles of the Wider Caribbean Region Karen L. Eckert WIDECAST, 1348 Rusticview Dr., Ballwin, MO 63011 USA (E-mail: [email protected]) The Wider Caribbean Region (WCR) extends south of 30ºN Today the region’s marine turtle fauna is a sliver of what it once latitude to the border between French Guiana and Brazil, and was. Causal factors include legal and illegal targeted fisheries, embraces 28 sovereign nations and more than a dozen overseas incidental capture in fishing gear, killing of gravid females and egg territories affiliated with France, Great Britain, The Netherlands, collection on nesting beaches, national and international trade and and the United States. Range states vary in size from very small commerce, pollution and other degradation to foraging grounds, and island territories, such as Montserrat (population: 8,000) and loss of nesting habitat to coastal development (reviewed by NRC Anguilla (population: 12,000), to some of the largest nations in the 1990; Fleming 2001; Reichart 1993; Reichart et al. 2003; Seminoff world, including Mexico (population: 103 million) and the USA 2004; Godley et al. 2004; UNEP/GPA 2006; Bräutigam & Eckert (population: 288 million) (www.census.gov/ipc/prod/wp02/tabA- 2006; Mortimer & Donnelly 2007). According to McClenachan et 04.pdf). The region is defined by broad social and political diversity, al. (2006), 20% of historic nesting sites have been lost entirely and including the world’s greatest concentration of small countries, 50% of remaining nesting sites have been reduced to “dangerously representing “the full range of the world’s major political systems” low populations.” (Carpenter 2002). In general, and notwithstanding recently rising or recovering Biogeographically the WCR is largely comprised of two semi- populations where organized field conservation efforts are enclosed basins (the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico) with strengthened by legal protection of turtles and habitats (Chelonia: an average depth of approximately 2,200 m (the deepest point, Troëng & Rankin 2005; Dermochelys: Dutton et al. 2005; Stewart 7,100 m, is located in the Cayman Trench) (UNEP 1984). The & Johnson 2006; Girondot et al. 2007; Eretmochelys: Beggs et region is known for its tropical shallow marine ecosystems, patterns al. 2007; Kamel & Delcroix 2009; Stapleton et al., this issue; of endemism, and species diversity (summarized by Spalding & Lepidochelys: Márquez et al. 2005; Kelle et al. 2009), marine Kramer 2004) – including six of the world’s seven species of marine turtle populations throughout the WCR have become so severely turtle. Based on reduced range of habitat, declines in population reduced from historical levels as to be considered by Bjorndal & size, or both, these marine turtles are classified by the IUCN Red List Jackson (2003) “virtually extinct” from the standpoint of their role of Threatened Species (http://www.iucnredlist.org/) as Vulnerable in Caribbean marine ecosystems. (olive ridley, Lepidochelys olivacea), Endangered (loggerhead, Concerned about the deteriorating status of marine turtles Caretta caretta; green, Chelonia mydas) or Critically Endangered in the region, intergovernmental meetings devoted to defining (Kemp’s ridley, L. kempii; hawksbill, Eretmochelys imbricata; and addressing issues of shared management concern have been leatherback, Dermochelys coriacea) at a global scale. convening in the WCR for more than two decades (e.g., Bacon et Marine turtles have provided nutrition, wealth and in other ways al. 1984; Ogren 1989; Eckert & Abreu Grobois 2001; IUCN 2002) been useful to humans for at least 4,000 years (Peterson 1997; – and significant progress has been made. Today marine turtles are Versteeg et al. 1990; Frazier 2003). They fed indigenous tribes and legally protected year-round by 70% of WCR governments (Dow helped make foreign colonization possible. Carr (1955) observed et al. 2007), “there is very little evidence in official statistics of that, “all early activity in the New World tropics – exploration, significant trade in marine turtle products” since the closing of the colonization, buccaneering, and even the manoeuverings of naval Japanese market for hawksbill shell in 1993 (Bräutigam & Eckert squadrons – was in some way or degree dependent on turtle.” Marine 2006), and several international treaties and agreements (see Wold turtles once numbered in the tens of millions in the Caribbean Sea 2002) promote the protection of turtles and their habitats. Two of (Jackson 1997) and were not atypically described by early writers these treaties – the Convention on the Protection and Development of as a “never failing resource” (Long 1774 in King 1982). Indeed, the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region (Cartagena some of the largest breeding colonies the world has ever known once Convention, a UNEP Regional Seas Programme http://www. flourished in the region (Chelonia in the Cayman Islands: Lewis cep.unep.org) and the more recent Inter-American Convention 1940; Aiken et al. 2001; Bell et al. 2006, 2007; Eretmochelys in for the Protection and Conservation of Sea Turtles (http://www. Panama: Meylan & Donnelly 1999). iacseaturtle.org) are specific to the region and provide a strong basis Herbivorous green turtles were especially savoured for their for collaboration and co-ordination in addressing threats to marine mild flesh, and historically this species was traded in enormous turtles and the ecosystems upon which they depend. volumes (Parsons 1962; King 1982; Groombridge & Luxmoore Among the assets of the Cartagena Convention that are most 1989; Jackson 1997). Similarly, the colorful carapace scutes of the directly related to marine turtle conservation are its Regional hawksbill turtle once featured prominently in the region’s foreign Activity Centers (RACs), including a RAC for Specially Protected export earnings, historically in trade with Europe but more recently Areas and Wildlife located in the French Overseas Department (increasingly dramatically in the early 1970s) in trade to Asian of Guadeloupe, and its