Detection ofSalmonella entericaSerovar Montevideo and Newport in Free-ranging Sea Turtles and Beach Sand in the Caribbean and Persistence in Sand and Seawater Microcosms

Estimates of illegal wildlife trade vary significantly and are often based on incomplete datasets, inferences from CITES permits or customs seizures. As a result, annual global estimates of illegal wildlife trade can vary by several billions of US dollars. Translating these figures into species extraction rates is equally challenging, and estimating illegal take accurately is not achievable for many species. Due to their nesting strategies that allow for census data collection, sea turtles offer an exception. On the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, three sea turtle species (leatherback, Dermochelys coriacea; green, Chelonia mydas; and hawksbill, Eretmochelys imbricata) are exploited by poachers. Despite the consumption of turtle eggs and meat being illegal, they are consumed as a cultural food source and seasonal treat. Conservation programmes monitor nesting beaches, collect abundance data and record poaching events. Despite the availability of robust long-term datasets, quantifying the rate of poaching has yet to be undertaken. Using data from the globally important nesting beach, Tortuguero, as well as beaches Playa Norte and Pacuare on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, we modelled the spatial and temporal distribution of poaching of the three sea turtle species. Here, we present data from 2006 to 2019 on a stretch of coastline covering c.37 km. We identified poaching hotspots that correlated with populated areas. While the poaching hotspots persisted over time, we found poaching is declining at each of our sites. However, we urge caution when interpreting this result as the impact of poaching varies between species. Given their low abundance on these beaches, the poaching pressure on leatherback and hawksbill turtles is far greater than the impact on the abundant green turtles. We attribute the decline in poaching to supply-side conservation interventions in place at these beaches. Finally, we highlight the value of data sharing and collaborations between conservation NGOs.

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Fibropapillomatosis in free-ranging green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) off the central coast of Veracruz, Mexico

Ciencias Marinas ◽

10.7773/cm.v46i2.3043 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 46 (2) ◽

pp. 133-143

Author(s):

Emilio A Suárez-Domínguez

Keyword(s):

Sea Turtles ◽

Chelonia Mydas ◽

Central Coast ◽

Green Sea Turtles ◽

Free Ranging

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Behavioural inference from signal processing using animal-borne multi-sensor loggers: a novel solution to extend the knowledge of sea turtle ecology

Royal Society Open Science ◽

10.1098/rsos.200139 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 7 (5) ◽

pp. 200139 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Lorène Jeantet ◽

Víctor Planas-Bielsa ◽

Simon Benhamou ◽

Sebastien Geiger ◽

Jordan Martin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Sea Turtles ◽

Time Budget ◽

Natural Habitat ◽

Sea Turtle ◽

Automatic Identification ◽

Detailed Knowledge ◽

Supervised Learning Algorithms ◽

Conservation Of Endangered Species ◽

Free Ranging

The identification of sea turtle behaviours is a prerequisite to predicting the activities and time-budget of these animals in their natural habitat over the long term. However, this is hampered by a lack of reliable methods that enable the detection and monitoring of certain key behaviours such as feeding. This study proposes a combined approach that automatically identifies the different behaviours of free-ranging sea turtles through the use of animal-borne multi-sensor recorders (accelerometer, gyroscope and time-depth recorder), validated by animal-borne video-recorder data. We show here that the combination of supervised learning algorithms and multi-signal analysis tools can provide accurate inferences of the behaviours expressed, including feeding and scratching behaviours that are of crucial ecological interest for sea turtles. Our procedure uses multi-sensor miniaturized loggers that can be deployed on free-ranging animals with minimal disturbance. It provides an easily adaptable and replicable approach for the long-term automatic identification of the different activities and determination of time-budgets in sea turtles. This approach should also be applicable to a broad range of other species and could significantly contribute to the conservation of endangered species by providing detailed knowledge of key animal activities such as feeding, travelling and resting.

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Exceptionally high natal homing precision in hawksbill sea turtles to insular rookeries of the Caribbean

Marine Ecology Progress Series ◽

10.3354/meps12957 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 620 ◽

pp. 155-171 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

KE Levasseur ◽

SP Stapleton ◽

MC Fuller ◽

JM Quattro

Keyword(s):

Sea Turtles ◽

Natal Homing ◽

The Caribbean

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The Last Turtlemen of the Caribbean

10.5149/northcarolina/9781469660219.001.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Sharika D. Crawford

Keyword(s):

Significant Role ◽

Natural Environment ◽

Raw Materials ◽

Sea Turtles ◽

Economic Change ◽

Ecological Sustainability ◽

The People ◽

Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽

The Caribbean ◽

National Governments

Illuminating the entangled histories of the people and commodities that circulated across the Atlantic, Sharika D. Crawford assesses the Caribbean as a waterscape where imperial and national governments vied to control the profitability of the sea. Crawford places the green and hawksbill sea turtles and the Caymanian turtlemen who hunted them at the center of this waterscape. The story of the humble turtle and its hunter, she argues, came to play a significant role in shaping the maritime boundaries of the modern Caribbean. Crawford describes the colonial Caribbean as an Atlantic commons where all could compete to control the region’s diverse peoples, lands, and waters and exploit the region’s raw materials. Focusing on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Crawford traces and connects the expansion and decline of turtle hunting to matters of race, labor, political, and economic change, and the natural environment. Like the turtles they chased, the boundary-flouting laborers exposed the limits of states’ sovereignty for a time but ultimately they lost their livelihoods, having played a significant role in the legislation delimiting maritime boundaries. Still, former turtlemen have found their deep knowledge valued today in efforts to protect sea turtles and recover the region’s ecological sustainability.

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