The Cayman Turtle Farm is compelled to respond to misinformation that appeared in a recent short film produced by The Ecologist magazine.

Cayman Turtle Farm Managing Director Tim Adam says the film appears to be heavily based on claims from the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), an organisation which clearly has a biased agenda against the Cayman Turtle Farm.

Despite being contacted on the last day of a longer visit by the Ecologist film crew, the Cayman Turtle Farm did invite them to film inside the public areas of the park, but they declined the offer – apparently preferring instead to film over the fence.

The Cayman Turtle Farm was also disappointed to see that despite accommodating the film’s producer with an extensive telephone interview with the Farm’s Managing Director, hardly any of that interview was used. Instead the film crew chose to bias the video with negative comments in the editing process, creating a largely one-dimensional piece.

In its video, The Ecologist discusses that activists have raised concerns about threats to human health and infer that bacteria harmful to humans is transferred when turtles are handled by the public.

Mr Adam refutes this risk, pointing out that “The Cayman Turtle Farm has established turtle handling protocols in place – including supervision and hand-washing, which are communicated to guests through signage and spoken instructions. These protocols follow the US Centers for Disease Control safe reptile handling guidelines. But, clearly, the strongest evidence that handling the turtles at the Cayman Turtle Farm is not harmful to humans is provided by the fact that in over 40 years of operation, with millions of guests visiting the farm and handling the turtles, we have not had one known case of transmission of illness or disease.”

The Ecologist film goes on to state that concerns had been raised with regard to the Farm’s contribution to turtle conservation, with the video downplaying the Cayman Turtle Farm’s turtle release programme and its successes.

“In fact, the Cayman Turtle Farm’s release programme is steadily providing on-going evidence of long-term success,” Mr Adam confirms. “By providing a sustainable source of turtle meat (the national dish) to Caymanians, where demand is still high, the Cayman Turtle Farm reduces the pressure on wild populations and the Cayman Islands Department of Environment states in the Ecologist video that without this legal source, they would anticipate an increase in illegal take from the wild,” he says.

The Cayman Turtle Farm’s release programme involves ‘Headstarting’ the released turtles – which is a process undertaken to breed, tag and then release turtles into the wild, after a period of sustained and intensive health and welfare checks.

Dr. Walter Mustin, Cayman Turtle Farm Chief Research Officer, explains the success of the programme further: “Since 1968 we have released over 31,000 turtles into the wild. Of these 24,747 were tagged, 4,498 with ‘living tags’ – 4 mm disk plastron-to-carapace autographs – a tagging technique pioneered in 1983 by Professor John Hendrickson and Lupe Hendrickson of the University of Arizona. The return in early January, 2013 of yet another ‘living tagged’ female, demonstrates that turtles released from the Cayman Turtle Farm are completing their life cycle by successfully nesting on Cayman Beaches,” he explains. “Wild reared Green turtles take 20-50 years to reach sexual maturity and while females coming ashore to lay their eggs often return to the same beach at which they were born; this is not always the case. Our tagged turtles may well be nesting in other locations in addition to the Cayman Islands. The return of nesting females, documented by the Cayman Islands Department of Environment, clearly shows the Cayman Turtle Farm’s positive contribution to the growth of the local wild nesting population and local divers continue to provide anecdotal evidence of increased numbers of wild turtles seen in Cayman’s waters.”

The Cayman Turtle Farm has also provided an invaluable research contribution to scientific study on sea turtles, with the Farm’s turtle population being the subject of numerous research papers on the biology and behaviour of green sea turtles. Many of these studies have been in collaboration with externally based researchers and academic institutions, and have resulted in over 150 high-quality scholarly publications.

At the end of the Ecologist short film, Dr Neil D’Cruze, Wildlife Campaign Leader for WSPA states that the organisation is willing to work with all relevant stakeholders, including the Cayman Turtle Farm. This is contrary to the actions seen thus far by the WSPA in its campaign against the Cayman Turtle Farm. To achieve its own ends, the WSPA has chosen to mount an antagonistic campaign aimed at undermining the reputation and business of the Cayman Turtle Farm.

The Cayman Turtle Farm voluntarily underwent a thorough independent review of its farming and turtle display operations in December 2012, and in the interests of transparency and continuous improvements of the Farm’s operations the company anticipates that the inspection report and recommendations will be available for release by the end of January 2013.

See today’s iNews Cayman story: “Justice in a Half Shell: Researchers Demand the Cayman Turtle Farm Be Shut Down”