SOS Tartarugas works in Cape Verde protecting nesting loggerheads turtles (Caretta caretta) and their habitat. Cape Verde is the third most important nesting area for loggerheads in the world. Turtles are at risk from hunting for meat, stealing of eggs, removal of sand for building and unregulated tourism development. Our email is info@turtlesos.org.
P
lease subscribe to the blog or follow us on Twitter or on our Facebook page to keep up to date. (You can also read this blog in a different language, please use the tool in the sidebar).
You can apply to volunteer with us by clicking here.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Up track, no down track


Always a bad sign... unfortunately for this turtle it became the first statistic on the east coast, following the tell-tale drag mark almost a kilometer off the beach, we found the remains of a 80cm female loggerhead. This is the first carapace we have found, compared to last year when we would regularly find three or four left on the beach every morning, turtle-killers are now too scared to do their work on the beaches because there are too many people watching. Another change is that they had made a feeble attempt to erase the turtle's tracks, but it was still immediately obvious what had happened. Usually the flippers are discarded, but in this case they were missing, leading to a suspicion that, unfortunately, she was a turtle that we had previously tagged. Her eggs were laying scattered along her remains, so another generation has also been lost.

No comments:

Post a Comment