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SEA TURTLES

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About 35,000 endangered sea turtles are slaughtered off the coasts of Baja California each year, making its waters the most dangerous place for a sea turtle to swim anywhere in the world. Though it has been illegal to harvest and consume sea turtle in Mexico for more than a decade, black market demand for endangered sea turtle meat is widespread in both Southern California and Mexico.

  • Sea Turtles are threatened due to the poaching and hunting of their shells, meat and eggs.
  • Turtle eggs are sold as a snack in bars and inns along the coast of Mexico with the absurd belief that they posses aphrodisiac elements.
  • During Easter week - Semana Santa in Spanish - as many as 5,000 turtles will meet with poacher's nets to be served for Easter dinner in some of the region's wealthiest households. Many consider the turtles to be fish due to their swimming ability, which is a permitted food category during Lent.
  • Highly populated coastal areas and artificial lights on beaches are causing sea turtle hatchlings to become disoriented and travel inland, where they often die from dehydration, are preyed upon by fire ants and ghost crabs, or sometimes crawl onto the road where they are run over by cars.

Conservation Strategies

Mexico plays a crucial role in the survival of the world's sea turtles. Once a year, six of the seven species that exist use the country's beaches to lay their eggs, sometimes up to 100 at a time in holes dug in the sand at night.

Today WiLDCOAST has an office in Huatulco, Oaxaca, close to the most important beaches for sea turtle survival, beaches like Morro Ayuta and Santa Cruz. 

In 2014, along the sea turtle camps of southern Oaxaca, 424,228 sea turtles deposited 36 million eggs on Oaxaca’s beaches. Of those eggs, more than 11 million sea turtle hatchlings emerged from their nests in one of the greatest wildlife spectacles on earth.

But only one in 10,000 will survive to adulthood and return to nest in that same beach 

 

TAKE ACTION

 

Practical steps you can take to protect and preserve sea turtles.

  • DON'T EAT SEA TURTLE MEAT OR EGGS.

    If you live in Mexico, there is a phone number to report the illegal trade of sea turtle products to the environmental ministry enforcement. The more denouncements authorities receive, the better they will be able to perform their job. In Mexico call: 01800-7703372. If you live outside of Mexico contact your local authority for environment related denouncements. You can also report his crime at PROFEPA's website. 

  • Recruit local fisherman to work on monitoring teams. They are in the water everyday confronting poachers and confiscating illegal nets and have spread the word about the sea turtle's endangered status through their communities.

  • Local efforts have made it much harder to move large 300 pound turtles from remote fishing villages to the cities where it can be sold on the black market.

  • Educate locals that the turtle eggs are not aphrodisiac.
  • Don't pollute the oceans! Sea turtles mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, the plastic can block the digestive tract, leading them to eventually starved to death. Also, sea turtles and other marine mammals, birds and fish can become tangled in plastic bands, six-pack rings or other plastic trash. If the animals become tangled, they use a lot of energy trying to get free and may become sick, weak or even die. 

  • Support Eco-Tourism

  • DONATE! Help us continue our efforts to save these very biologically important species that are in grave danger. 

Impact

It is hard to overstate the importance of Oaxaca’s stunning beaches to the long-term survival of sea turtles. In one night alone, on Morro Ayuta beach, in 2014, 424,228 sea turtles deposited 36 million eggs on Oaxaca’s beaches. Of those eggs, more than 11 million sea turtle hatchlings emerged from their nests in one of the greatest wildlife spectacles on earth.

 

In September, our ocean superhero, El Hijo del Santo, toured the sea turtle nesting beaches of southern Oaxaca along with Mexico’s national media to raise awareness of the need to continue to protect these beaches. While spending the night to safeguard thousands of arriving sea turtles, our team became aware of poachers who had arrived on horseback. Luckily, local rangers and Mexican federal enforcement officers were able to rescue the eggs, confiscating more than 10,000.

 

But Oaxaca is more than just a haven for some of the world’s most endangered marine reptiles. The ocean offshore is a haven for humpback whales, manta rays and sport fish. There is good reason that Oaxaca’s coastal wetlands are considered Ramsar Wetlands of International Importance. In addition to their role as critical habitat for the survival of migratory birds, they are home to elusive jaguarundis, margays and ocelots.

 

In 2016, we’ll expand our efforts to preserve the vulnerable coastal and marine ecosystems and wildlife of southern Oaxaca. In collaboration with local authorities, we’ll help to develop an ecological zoning plan for the area around Huatulco National Park and we’ll continue our efforts to preserve the coral reefs, sea turtles and beaches of one of the world’s most beautiful and unique coastlines.

 

Our campaigns in radio, TV and printed media have allowed us to reach millions of people in Mexico and Latin America. We firmly believe that if we are able to reduce the consumption of sea turtles, we will be able to eradicate a huge black market that threatens these spectacular species. 

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Tannia Frausto Illescas
Coordinator: Networking & Conservation Management (Mexico)

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