July is
the peak season for turtles coming to
the beach to lay eggs, so we must be
especially careful not to disturb them.
There are night patrols on the beach by
volunteers to watch for poachers.
Hawksbill sea turtles are listed
as critically endangered globally. The most serious threats
to their survival are due to the actions of humans. The
Barbados Marine Trust wishes to contribute to the reversal
of this trend by collaborating with the Barbados Sea Turtle
Project (BSTP) of the University of the West Indies.
Nesting habitat was planted
in December/January 2001 as an experiment. The beach between
Coconut Court and the Hilton is one of the most important
Hawksbill nesting beaches in the southern Caribbean. Therefore,
nesting habitat was planted to see if we could attract turtles
by providing vegetation for them to nest in, bearing in
mind that nowadays most hotels are removing the vegetation
in front of their hotels
The habitat
consists of goat's foot yam and sea grape which are the
preferred vegetation of the turtles.
Dwarf coconut
trees were also planted to block the residual light from
the hotel, since the turtles like to nest on dark beaches.
Three "islands" were planted in December 2000
to help encourage nesting activity. Other things that
were done to encourage nesting were the implementation
of motion detector lighting on the beachfront. This factor
makes Coconut Court's beach probably the only lit hotel's
beach in Barbados.
In September 2001, the experiment
worked as two (2) large hawksbill turtles lay their nest.
The photograph opposite clearly identifies one (1) or
two (2) nests with an official Barbados sea turtle project
warning card.
In late November, both nests hatched and in the photograph
below you can see the marine biologist and the environmental
scientist weighing and measuring ten (10) young turtles
from one of the nest. In this particular nest there were
one hundred and fifty-eight (158) survivors out of one
hundred and sixty-two (162) laid eggs. They were also
approximately thirty (30) hotel guests and three (3) local
fishermen that were on hand to see the release. Thus,
proving that with proper management endangered hawksbill
turtles stand a very good chance of surviving forever.
