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2002 Turtle Season Draws to a Close
It was a fabulous turtle season and all of us at CEA want to thank everyone who supported us by joining us on our turtle walks, adopting a turtle or a nest and become CEA Members. It is primarily through your contributions that our program exists. We would also like to thank the many volunteers and EcoTourists that made this program possible as well as the PADI Foundation that helped to support us.
This year we had two great rescue stories one of a mother Green turtle who got confused before laying her eggs and landed in a swimming pool, click here to read more. The second rescue was a Hawksbill turtle who was injured when it got caught in a fishing net. That turtle was taken to Xcaret and we are pleased to inform you that she was released three months later.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank those divers who called CEA so we could help this turtle and a special thanks to the Xacaret Park. According to Rogelio Villavicencio, who heads up the Programa de Tortugas Marinas at CEA, "The divers who found the turtle, and the veterinarians at Xcaret are the real heroes. Thanks to the PADI Foundation, without the support of everyone this turtle may have lost its fins." For more about this story please click here.
Our turtle numbers are up from last year's. The total for 2002 is 300 nests in Akumal; 127 were Loggerhead nests and 173 were Green turtle nests. We have had to protect more nests this year. When the beaches are crowded with nests they can be destroyed when another turtle chooses the
same spot of beach to nest. This happened to 1 nest in Half Moon Bay and 5 nests in Turtle Beach. Isadore destroyed 1 nest in South Akumal and 2 in Half Moon Bay. There was 1 nest in South Akumal that was destroyed by thieves and 4 in Half Moon Bay. There were 7 nests at Turtle Beach that we could not determine what happened to them. We are please to report that we were able to protect the following nests: 3 in South Akumal, 11 in Akumal Bay, 83 in Half Moon Bay and 182 at Turtle Beach. We released 27,158 hatchlings, 10,322 were Loggerheads and 16,836 were Green Turtles. There are still a few nest left to hatch, we expect to reach the goal of 28,000 hatchlings. We have been told that the Xcaret Turtle Program has released between 1,000 and 2,000 hatchlings every day during the last month. Overall it was a very good year. To compare this year's number to last year's please click here.
In closing I would like to share with you a short report that Dillon Auken age 9 from Cordove, Tennessee wrote. And we quote: "For my Fall Break my grandparents took me to Akumal, Mexico. The best part of my trip was getting to release some baby green sea turtles whose nest had been messed up by a hurricane. The CEO people saved the eggs and let them hatch. There were 102 turtles in all. We walked down the beach at night and helped them crawl into the ocean where the moon was shining. I hope all families can do this. They should visit the CEO office in Akumal and help them save more turtles. I will always remember this."
Thank you for your support and interest in CEA's Turtle Program. If you have a question about turtles or our turtle programs please contact us at turtle@ceakumal.org.
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