Cayman Turtle Farm to release 150 turtles into the wild
Increased hatching rates boost numbers for 32nd Annual Pirates Week Turtle Release
The Cayman Turtle Farm: Island Wildlife Encounter will release 150 turtles into the wild this weekend in its 32nd Annual Pirates Week Turtle Release.
Organised in conjunction with the Pirate’s Week Committee, the annually anticipated release will take place on the shores of the North Sound, directly across from the North Sound Golf Club on Sunday, 11th November at 4pm.
This year’s event will feature a significantly higher number of turtles being released than in recent years, largely due to a highly successful nesting season – which saw a record number of eggs laid and an increased hatching rate.
The Cayman Turtle Farm’s release programme, is an important aspect of the organisation’s conservation mandate and has placed over thirty-one thousand green sea turtles into the wild since 1980. The annual event has grown over the years to become one of the most popular features of the Pirates Week calendar.
“Members of the public are invited to join the Cayman Turtle Farm in our conservation efforts,” said Managing Director Tim Adam. “This year visitors to the Cayman Turtle Farm and the Pirates Week Office leading up the event, can enter a raffle for a chance to release one of 15 turtles into the sea.”
This year’s release will include yearlings and advanced hatchlings. Yearlings will be fitted with Passive Integrated Transponders (PIT tags) which are micro transponders encased in a glass case about the size of a large grain of rice. These electronic tags are injected under the skin and can only be detected with a scanner (similar to wand scanners used at the grocery store).
These and other types of tags allow researchers around the world to identify individual animals and better understand migration and nesting patterns. The most recent observational data shows that at least 14 females tagged and released from the Cayman Turtle Farm in the 1980s, have returned to lay their own eggs on Cayman beaches.
Historically, the Cayman Islands boasted one of the largest green sea turtle populations in the Caribbean and possibly the world. Indeed there were so many turtles that upon discovery of the Islands in 1503 Christopher Columbus named them ‘Las Tortugas’. However, from as early as the Seventeenth Century, this natural resource had become commercially extinct and by 1900, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) had deemed this population to be extinct in the Cayman Islands.
Today, according to the Department of Environment, there are less than thirty adult female green sea turtles nesting in the Cayman Islands each year. To this end, one objective of the Cayman Turtle Farm’s release programme is to help replenish the local population of reproducing green sea turtles.
As part of the release programme, turtles are quarantined and reviewed for any disease or defect before release. Yearlings also take part in a process known as “headstarting” which prepares them for life in their natural habitat by replicating conditions in the wild prior to their release.
Recent studies by the Cayman Turtle Farm of satellite-tagged released turtles show them adapting well to their new habitat and roaming widely throughout the Caribbean region.
“Our release programme is dear to our hearts and a central component of our conservation activities as we continue to preserve the Green Sea Turtle population,” Mr. Adam said. “This is a very important event for us, as we are releasing a larger number of turtles than we have in several years.”
Since Hurricane Michelle decimated the Cayman Turtle Farm’s breeding stock in 2001, the Farm has been working to grow its turtle population and is now reaching the point where increased numbers of turtles can be released into the wild each year.
Cayman Turtle Farm management also expressed their thanks to North Sound Golf Club owner Michael Ryan for giving his permission for use of the release site.
To take part in this historic event or to find out more about sponsorship opportunities call the Cayman Turtle Farm: Island Wildlife Encounter on 949-3894, send an e-mail to [email protected] or visit www.turtle.ky
