The sea turtles of Punta Chame, an island of Panama that enters the Pacific Ocean, are facing the same threat as the rhinoceros and the pangolin: people’s beliefs.
The eggs of protected olive ridley turtles, which are illegally harvested along the coast, are sold door-to-door in town for 75 cents to $1 each for their alleged aphrodisiac properties.
“Especially men think that by eating turtle eggs they will have more sexual pleasure,” said Jorge Padilla, an environmentalist with the NGO Fundacion Tortuguias that collects and hatches the precious eggs.
“Eggs won’t help you. They’re not an aphrodisiac,” she insisted.
The olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) is listed as “vulnerable” on the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and its numbers are declining.
Its survival depends largely on people like Padilla, who has volunteers from the village collect the newly laid eggs and bury them in the sand at the nursery.
Hundreds hatch here every year between July and February. Within a few hours they are brought to the beach and released near the water’s edge by volunteers who watch with parental pride as the small groups run into the sea.
“We can’t just put them (in the water) because they have to go through a process called ‘imprinting’ (on the beach) that will bring them 18-20 years to the same beach where they were born” his eggs.
They are used as nests, clothes
Day and night, Padilla patrols the beach to scare away poachers.
Other threats are stray dogs that roam the beach in search of food, and eagles.
Padilla chases the dogs but leaves the eagles as they are natural predators and part of life.
The turtles are also vulnerable to bycatch due to fishing, and face threats to their nesting beaches due to human disturbance and climate change.
“There are many threats to sea turtles, in the Pacific and the Caribbean: illegal harvesting of eggs, overeating of their meat, their shells… They are used as nests… for clothing,” said Padilla.
Sea turtles and their uncertain future are on the agenda of an international wildlife conference being held in Panama City, near Punta Chame and its 500 residents.
The gathering of countries under the International Convention on Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has considered ways to combat egg theft and smuggling.
A working document on the CITES website states that “illegal harvesting and trade are threatening sea turtles.”
© Agence France-Presse
