JEDDAH, 25 August — Hawksbill turtles, an endangered species since 1970 and now close to extinction according to some researchers, have friends in Kuwait.
The Kuwait Marine Turtles Interest Group (KMTIG) is a dedicated group of volunteers. Their goal, says Fahad Al Sumait, one of the founding members, “is to lead others to do their part to protect Kuwait’s environment.”
Hawksbill turtles are found throughout the Gulf and in the Red Sea and use the reefs as their feeding grounds and as a nursery for juveniles. Distinguished by their eponymous beak and very thick carapace, they roam the sea for huge distances, years at a time. This makes them very difficult to track and study.
They come ashore to nest once every two or three years, though studies in other Gulf countries suggest it is as infrequently as three or four years, and lay 60 to 200 an egg at a time.
Only about one in a thousand of the hatchlings in perfect circumstances achieves reproductive maturity after about thirty years. Circumstances however are not perfect. The biggest single threat to the turtles is their characteristic carapace — the only source of ‘tortoiseshell.’ Japan alone between 1970 and 1990 imported 713,850 kg of the shell, representing the deaths of 670,000 turtles.
Threats from pollution, urbanization of sea fronts, commercial fishing and reef damage are all additional contributors to the rapid decline of the Hawksbill turtle. These same environmental threats are having the same effect on the related Green turtle, which is only marginally less endangered.
KMTIG’s work focuses on collecting essential background data. If collected over an extended period, the data will prove invaluable in the fight to ensure a better future for the Gulf’s turtle populations.
Substantial grants from the Ford Motor Company Conservation and Environmental Grants fund the group.
Andy Wilson, a marine geography scientist working at the Scientific Center Aquarium in Kuwait and a core member of the group says, “It’s hard to tell the status of the turtle populations of the Gulf. It is certain however, that the habitat required for nesting is being compromised by industrial developments.”
Fahad Al Sumait holds out a positive view of the group’s work. “The fact that we live in a country where it is easy to reach the people at the top is a real bonus. The response from local people has been much better than expected but there is still work to be done. We can see we’re making a difference and that motivates us.”
