Mass Stranding of Olive Ridleys Guatemala May 2011

Dear friends,

I am writing with sad and distressing news today from Guatemala. We are right in the middle of a mass Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) stranding event. Last Sunday (1st of May) we had 4 stranded olive ridleys wash up on the Pacific coast in the department of Santa Rosa. Then four days later we had a further 12 strandings (6 alive & 6 dead) in the same part of the coast.

Scott (Akazul) with stranded L.olivacea

All live turtles have been in a state of debilitation- epibiota (algae and barnacles) on the body, flippers and plastron indicating prolonged periods of floating at sea, emaciation (concave plastrons & no fat), and dehydration (sunken eyes etc). Those that have been necropsied have had enlarged livers, cachexia (body wasting) and emphysema in the lungs.

Mariachi at sea with a female L.olivacea

Several trips out to sea have been made to look for more sick turtles and on Tuesday 10^th May 2 more sick females were brought in. Then on the 11^th May on another trip 12 more were found, 6 of which have been brought in for treatment.

Jaime Perez (Protortugas) at sea looking for sick turtles

Our total so far is 30 turtles (a mixture of both males and females) and there are countless more still yet to be found out at sea.

Collecting debilitated turtles at sea

We have been working in conjunction with our friends Protortugas, experienced veterinarians from Guatemala City, attempting to rehabilitate the live strandings and necropsy and run tests on those that pass.

The cause of these strandings remains a mystery and we won’t know too much until samples are analysed. All we know at the moment is that this disease or illness is only affecting one species of turtle- Lepidochelys olivacea and this is coinciding with the time that these turtles are migrating back to their coastal breeding grounds. It seems that this may be a bacterial, viral or parasitic infection which will be difficult to detect without the analysis of samples.

Alice & Sarah (Akazul) assessing the new arrivals

For any of those out there who may be able to help with this investigation, please do get in touch via admin@akazul.org

Kind regards,

The team at Akazul

The latest from April...

Saludos a todos! Hope that all of you are well...

Apologies for skipping a month of news here on the blogsite, we aim to keep you updated with all that happens in the Akazul camp and will endeavour to keep this page updated on a monthly basis so please come back and keep checking.

Lots to report from our side... Scott & Sarah represented Akazul at the 31st Annual International Sea Turtle Symposium in San Diego at the beginning of this month and the Akazul word has been well and truely spread with new contacts and supporters being made... a very successful symposium- we hope the start of many more!

Semana Santa has descended heavily on all beaches across Pacific Guatemala, some 5000 visitors have come to the usually sleepy village of La Barrona which is 5000 times more the usual garbage dumped on the beach, obviously terrible for the surrounding environment, the ocean especially... some of the locals have stepped up and organised a beach cleaning crew which should get the place looking back to normal. A step in the right direction and hopefully the beginning of regular beach cleaning... watch this space.



I've saved the best news till last... amazingly within weeks of our last stranded Hawksbill turtle, another juvenile has popped up in the river close to La Barrona! This time the turtle was brought in by a local fishermen who spotted her in the river and was completely healthy and released immediately. This has amazing implications for the importance of Guatemala as a foraging ground for juvenile Eastern Pacific Hawksbills as several have been found stranded on the coast in the last few years, and for sure many more show up but go unrecorded. Akazul have been in contact with the Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Inititative (ICAPO) and we hope to start working with them soon... very exciting times and we will keep you posted on how this develops.

Hawksbill Released

Great news from Guate... this morning we were able to release the stranded juvenile Hawksbill turtle back to the ocean. There was a good turn out for the event, the teachers and pupils from the local school attended and it was the first time any of the locals had seen a Hawksbill. March the 8th is carnival day so the scene was filled with eggs and confetti along with the carnival king and queen... so sereal that it can only be Guatemala!

A special thanks to Gloria and Leonel... the couple who found the turtle and brought it straight to us- thanks to them the turtle has made it back to the ocean.

Stranded juvenile Hawksbill

Here in La Barrona we have just received our first live stranded turtle. She’s a small and feisty juvenile Hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) with a curved carapace length of only 36 cm. She was found stranded on the beach close to the border of El Salvador entangled in a large nylon sack. Luckily one of the local egg poachers picked her up and brought her straight to us. There doesn’t appear to be any obvious injuries so we will keep her under observation for the next couple of days and all being well, release her as soon as possible.

Although Hawksbill turtles do not typically nest here on Guatemala’s Pacific beaches, on average we have at least one stranding each year, which indicates that Eastern Pacific Hawksbills are passing through Guatemalan waters. This species of turtle is classed as critically endangered (see: http://www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/8005/0) and until recently was thought to be virtually extinct from the Eastern Pacific region. However, a large rookery has been discovered in neighbouring El Salvador and conservationists throughout the region are working hard to learn more about these turtles in order to protect them. For more information on Eastern Pacific Hawksbills see: http://hawksbill.org/ or read the following journal paper: http://hawksbill.org/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/gaos_2010_EPhawksbills.pdf

First Leatherback Nest of the Year!

Holas!
Great news from La Barrona, Guatemala... on the 28th of January we were graced with the first Leatherback nest of the season, further to that it is also the ONLY nest that has been laid on the entire Pacific coast of Guatemala this year. The Eastern Pacific population of Leatherbacks is in serious decline and the low nesting numbers in Guatemala over the last few years speak for themselves.
We burried 56 eggs in the hatchery on the morning of the 28th and these should hatch in about 60 days... the 8th of April. Photos will follow..

Let's hope that this lone female comes back again over the next few weeks to lay another nest because every one really does count. If you'd like to read some more on Leatherbacks and conservation of the Eastern Pacific population the following are interesting sites:

http://www.conservation.org/great_turtle_race/Pages/pacific_leatherbacks_face_extinction.aspx

http://www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/6494/0

Feliz año nuevo!

Akazul would like to wish all of our supporters a "Feliz año nuevo"!

This year is sure to be an exciting one, and we will keep you up to date with everything new from Akazul... the project will be up and running for the beginning of the turtle season (July 2011) and the website is going live any day now.

So far, we are pleased to report that the first of the migratory humpback whales have been spotted off the Pacific coast of Guatemala... a good omen for the start of the year!

Please keep coming back for the latest news from Guatemala...

TED checks

This week we went out with a local fisherman to do some spot checks on trawlers to determine whether or not they were using their Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs). We left early from Hawaii and caught up with the boats trawling just off the coast at depths of 15-20 meters. All boats haul in their nets after 2 to 3 hours, and thats the point that we ride over to spot the TED. We came across some 5 boats, and surprisingly all of them were using their TEDs. We hope to do more trips like this throughout the turtle nesting season to ascertain the sources of mortality for Guatemalas sea turtles.