Project to the protection of sea turtles

Research Roland Dreger

The false Karettschildkröte ranks our seas among the strongly endangered animal species. Since 1993 an engaged project of the institute strives for ecology and nature protection of the University of Vienna in Turkey around the receipt of these urzeitlichen reptiles. Research and protection of species go thereby in the context of a training meeting hand in hand.

Innumerable sun screens, beach chairs and tourist inside, in the sun aalen themselves: At first sight here at the beaches would assume “Special Protected AREAs” so mentioned by Calis and Yaniklar in the south of Turkey probably nobody, areas thus, which serve the protection of strongly threatened animal species. But at the beaches of the Mediterranean it became close. And in such a way placing the sea turtles their eggs, where itself during the day tourist inside tummeln.

The false Karettschildkröte (Caretta caretta) is one only the more seven sea turtle kinds, which still exist today. All sieved stand meanwhile on the list of the endangered kinds. A combination of protection of species, research and clearing-up is - complete becoming extinct of the animals to prevent. Biolog inside the institute for ecology and nature protection co-operate thereby closely with their Turkish colleagues.

Picture: Sea sign redness Caretta caretta © R. Kikinger

Danger zone beach

Many that tourist inside do not know at all that they divide their beach of in the middle of April to at the end of of Septembers with the sea turtles. And more oppositely the mutual interests could not be. “Very much that happens there, does not correspond what is permitted, states in a protected area” to project manager Dr. Michael Stachowitsch, lector at Institut for ecology and nature protection, “hotel plants, which stress the beaches, nocturnal celebrations at the beach, driving with motorboats and jet skis.”

The shy reptiles are disturbed thereby with the oviposition, by motorboats hurt or end at thrown away plastic bags, which confound them with Quallen. And many of the animals - soup turtle the close relatives in particular - elsewhere land Stachowitsch despite the prohibition still in the pots, white: “Eaten in South America for example in the chamfering time increases turtle meat, there this from the sea comes and as meat does not apply in such a way.” The slow animals form for it an all too light

Freshly slipped young animal - a Hatchling so mentioned.  © M. Stachowitsch

After completion of the slip procedure becomes the number of unbefruchteten eggs, which determines dead embryos and from insects struck eggs.

Interference factor light

In the context of a thesis (diploma) one wants to examine in the coming summer many interference factors at the oviposition places of the turtles more exactly. In addition increasingly the light contamination counts in the beaches. Freshly slipped young animals orient themselves on the basis the moon light reflected at the water surface. This light is over-radiated by artificial sources of light, mad itself the animals. They do not arrive in the protecting water, by Raubtieren are eaten or die at exhaustion. Protection cages over the nests, set up by the science gutters, are to prevent this. The animals freshly slipped into it are released at dark beach sections.  

The scientific work locally represents one of the bases, in order to be able to meet at all meaningful preventive measures. An attention hereunder applies the procedures inside the turtle nests.

Thus special electronic sensors supervise the temperature in the sand. Similarly as thus with crocodiles, only that it turned around project woman employee Christine Fellhofer the connection exactly with those ", describes. Already a sun screen over the nest can affect the temperature negatively. It could be stated by such measurements in the past that the temperature in the nest decides on the sex of the young animals. “Develop the more highly the temperature, the more females.

Wissenschafter beim Vermessen und markieren eines erwachsenen Weibchen. © M. Stachowitsch

Sponsorship for a Caretta caretta

In the context of open land exercises the turtle project offers the possibility of the practical training of studying: Five weeks farm work in Turkey - camping atmosphere, night work, camp vest and success experience including. “The training meeting offers one of the few possibilities for the students, in order to see abroad a nature protection project - with all heights and depths”, Stachowitsch means.

Resistances, which are brought to the project, and which take in account the clearing-up work against the ignorance and often senselessness of in such a way some tourist inside or native ones to the experiences, which collect the students thereby. The project is financed mostly by sponsors, like the zoo Schönbrunn, Gulet tourism and A.R.G. Schmidt. One of the possibilities of supporting the project privately exists in a sponsorship for an animal. “50 euro a one year's sponsorship amounts to. But one receives a sponsorship document, exact information about its turtle, slipping success and can for the animal also a name select itself”, thus to Christine Fellhofer. The young animals, which slipped last summer, will only return in approx. 20 years the place of their birth and its eggs nächtens into the sand will put. It remains hoping that they find also then still the possibility for it. (ro)
 
In the sea turtle project of the University of Vienna take part beside the university Vienna the three Turkish universities of Izmir, Denizli and Aydin.

 

SOURCE. Institut for ecology and nature protection/department of sea biology sea turtle project

 http://www.dieuniversitaet-online.at/beitraege/news/projekt-zum-schutz-von-meeresschildkroten/69/neste/30.html

 

Note Web master: A friend wrote in its Mail the following:

Yesterday only I had an interesting discussion with some people, which its sail yachts for wintering in the Ege Saray Marina, Fethiye to have turned off. Two days ago there a Seelöwe was sighted! In the midst of of all the ships, he was on booty catch. The return of the Seelöwen is a topic, which was announced to the again established Deniz authority. Already before two years we met on two Seelöwen before the island Sövalye and in Marmaris. That is nevertheless times which nice!

That the Caretta´s much and gladly in the harbor basin of the Marina are is well-known. I make myself for concern only, that the turtles there the shell vegetation of the ships abknabbern. All ships are coated at the Unterwasserschiff with extremely poisonous colors (Antifouling), which the animals take then also to itself.

The breeding area of the Caretta Caretta sea turtle is not only at the Calisstrand, but also in Dalyan. There rattle during the routistic season of hundreds of trip boats with deafening Diesel noise by the river basin of the breeding place. Those much shrink from and noise-sensitive animals are up-frightened in such a way and driven out. Main thing the coal is correct!

Environmental protection and animal protection are still subordinated to the purse in Turkey. Harm!

There is much to say to this topic. Looks at you only times the poor many Huskys, which become closed into tiny crates before all veterinary practices the sales.

 

General information about sea turtles      

Sea Turtles have been around for 95 million years. Their ancestors were giant land turtles that entered the sea ages ago when the great dinosaurs lived. The first sea turtles looked little like those of today. It took millions of years for sea turtles to change, for legs to become pad-shaped flippers and for heavy, bulky bodies to flatten into lighter, streamlined shapes. The dinosaurs and the giant land turtles are gone forever; we can see only their fossil bones in museums. But, somehow, sea turtles have lived on.

Seven different kinds still swim in warm and temperate oceans around the world. They spend their whole lives in the water except for the brief times the females come onto land to nest and lay their eggs. The sea turtles share the sea with fish, whales, other sea creatures and you and me. In the seas surrounding Turkey, two species of sea turtles live: Loggerheads (Caretta caretta) and Green Turtles (Chelonia mydas).

 

 The Green Turtle

When Chirstopher Columbus discovered the New World, there were millions of sea turtles in the Caribbean Sea. Columbus and other explorers, traders, settlers, and pirates who followed him soon found out that one kind of sea turtle had especially tasty meat. This turtle was brown all over, grew to about three feet in lenght, and often weighed some 300 pounds. It grazed in shallow beds of grass, or turtle grass, near the shore. Sailors could easily capture the gentle animal.

They could turn it over onto its back so it was helpless, tie its flippers, and keep it aboard their ships to slaughter when they needed fresh meat. The fat inside this turtle’s body was green from the grass it ate, so it was named the green turtle. It is the only sea turtle that lives only on plants. Today, hundreds of years later, green turtles are still hunted and taken. Fewer and fewer remain.
 

The Loggerhead

The loggerhead turtle is slightly smaller than the green. A loggerhead may weigh between 300 and 400 pounds. It eats crabs and other sea animals for its food. The loggerhead hunts near coral reefs and rocks. You can recognize it by its large, thick head and broad, short neck. The loggerhead, like other sea turtles, cannot pull its head into its shell the way land turtles can. Its shell is like a suit of armour, but its head and flippers are unprotected.

Certain sharks and killer whales may attack these parts, but the loggerhead is big and fast and has few natural enemies. Colour its carapace and skin reddish-brown and the plastron yellow.
 

 The Green Turtle Nesting

A female green turtle arrived offshore at her nesting beach alone at night. She had mated earlier with a male green turtle nearby in the water. It was time for her to lay her eggs. She might nest three or four times during a single nesting season. Though she is fast and well suited to the water, she is slow, awkward, and in danger on land. The female dragged herself out of the sea and onto the beach up beyond the reach of high tide.

She dug a pit for her body with her flippers. She nestled in it and used her back flippers, like shovels, to scoop out a bottle-shaped hole. Now she drops about one hundred white, leathery eggs that look like ping pong balls into this hole. When she finished, she will cover the nest with sand and slowly lumber back to the sea, leaving a trail behind her. After she is gone, poachers may follow this trail and steal her eggs... or a hungry fox may feat on them.
 

The Hatchlings

The rays of the sun heat the beach, warming the turtle’s eggs buried in the sand. The eggs develop in the nest. They are ready to hatch in about two months. The patchlings pick at their shells with a small, sharp point at the front of their snout—this particular part will disappear after hatching. The hatchlings crack their shells. All must hatch at almost the same time, for all must share the work to escape from the nest.

aThe baby turtles scrape away at the sand overhead. The sand falls upon their empty shells, forming a platform that allows the hatchlings to rise. In a few days, they have scraped their way up to the roof of the nest. Then at night, or in the early morning, little dark heads and flippers wriggle out onto the beach. Two-inch long hatchlings crawl away and look for the sea.
 

Race To The Sea

The hatchlings sense the direction of the sea. The brightness over the water attracts them. They stream from the nest and begin their race to the sea. Full of life, but defenseless, they struggle clumsily across the beach. Their shells are soft and offer little protection. Swift lizards attack them. Armies of crabs pick them off. Sea birds gather and catch the tiny turtles in their sharp beaks and feast on them. Few hatchlings make it to the water.

And most of these will be eaten by fish: snappers, groupers, jacks, and sharp-toothed barracudas. Only one or two of the hatchlings may live. Where they go to spend their first year of life is a mystery. It is one of nature’s many secrets. Green turtles, for example, are not seen again until they are one year old when they are found feeding offshore in turtle grass beds. They are then as big as a dinner plate.

Turtle Hunting

People who live near the shore have always hunted sea turtles to help feed their families. A fisherman might harpoon a sea turtle and take it home to eat. Groups of men netted sea turtles when they rose to breathe and brought them back to their villages for food. For years, when sea turtles were plentiful, such hunting seemed to have little effect on the numbers of turtles. But the demand for sea turtles kept growing.
 
Money could be earned hunting and selling sea turtles. Money could be earned selling things made from turtles. Turtle hunting became profitable.So hunters took hundreds of turtles from the sea and even from the land, when they were nesting. Fewer and fewer sea turtles were left until they were almost all gone. Laws now protect sea turtles and forbid trade in turtle products. But not everyone obeys these laws.

Trawlers and Turtles

Commercial fishing boats around the world provide food from the sea for people. These vessels cruise coastal waters, dragging large nets along the sea bottom to gather in their catch. Trawling or scraping of the sea bottom is very detrimental to sea life in general because it destroys the breeding grounds of fish, shrimp and all marine life. Unfortunately, sea turtles are often caught accidentally in these nets. The great funnel-shaped nets of shrimp trawlers, for example, trap many loggerhead turtles. The turtles are swept along in the nets with the shrimp.

They are not able to come up to the surface to breathe, and they drown. So the small numbers of sea turtles are reduced even further. A way has to be found to solve the problem. Shrimp fishermen along the south-eastern coast of the United States are helping to find an answer. They are testing newly-designed nets that let the shrimp in but keep the turtles out.
 

No Place To Nest  

A loggerhead turtle crawls from the sea to the edge of a beach in Side on the Turkish South Coast. She pauses. What does she see? Apartment houses and hotels take up much of the beach. Only a narrow strip of sand remains, and it is crowded with people. In some places cement has been poured across the sand clear to the edge of the water. There is no place for the turtle to nest. The turtle goes back to the sea and returns at night. Hundreds of lights shine out from windows. The beach is bright. Elsewhere, along the coast, another turtle finds a small, undeveloped piece of beach and lays her eggs.

When they hatch, the young turtles crawl toward the brightness, but it is not the sea. It is the light of street lamps along a road that passes nearby. The hatchlings will die in the burning sun later that day. Once there were hundreds of miles of open shore for loggerhead sea turtles to nest on safely. It is different now.

From "Sea Turtles in every Aspect", a publication of The Society for The Protection of Nature

 
 

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