Sea turtles of the Cayman Islands

Wood, Fern E.; Wood, James R.

doi:10.1007/978-94-011-0904-8_12

Cited by 10 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…One would expect higher levels of nesting to occur in lesser developed areas, consequently subject to lower levels of light (Witherington, 1992; Witherington & Martin, 1996; Salmon, 2002), pedestrian traffic, human presence and other external interference. Wood & Wood (1994) suggested that the construction of condominiums on many of Cayman's beaches had resulted in infrequent nesting, although the lack of correlation between coastal development and clutch density, emergence success or hatch success suggests that development has not yet systematically impacted or degraded nesting habitat.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Intensive commercial fishing of turtles from as early as the 17th century (Jackson, 1977) effectively exhausted local populations by the early 1800s, and by 1900 it was believed that the local reproductive population had been extirpated (Parsons, 1962; Stoddart, 1980 a ; Groombridge, 1982; King, 1982). Wood & Wood (1994), however, reported 78 marine turtle nests by four species of marine turtle (green Chelonia mydas , loggerhead Caretta caretta , hawksbill Eretmochelys imbricata and leatherback Dermochelys coriacea ) between 1971 and 1991, 76 being on Grand Cayman, with one on each of Little Cayman and Cayman Brac. Building upon this work, Aiken et al (2001 a,b ) reported the results of the first systematic survey for nesting conducted during 1998 and 1999, identifying small populations of green and loggerhead turtles and critically low numbers of hawksbill turtles still nesting in the Cayman Islands, which have not been recorded since.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Monitoring and conservation of critically reduced marine turtle nesting populations: lessons from the Cayman Islands

Bell

Solomon

Blumenthal

et al. 2007

Animal Conservation

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Historically, nesting marine turtles were abundant in the Cayman Islands and were an integral part of the economy and culture. Today, nesting of loggerhead turtle Caretta caretta and green turtles Chelonia mydas takes place at very low levels. Hawksbill Eretmochelys imbricata nesting has not been recorded since 1999. We overview highly detailed monitoring data gathered over a 6-year period allowing insight into the magnitude and spatial and temporal patterns of marine turtle nesting, cost-effectiveness of monitoring such reduced populations, impacts of development on reproductive success and current threats to the recovery of the population. Nesting is diffuse and widely distributed for both nesting species on Grand and Little Cayman. Modelled nesting detection profiles for Grand Cayman show that in order to maintain data resolution, most sandy coastline must be surveyed throughout each season. However, in Little Cayman it may be possible to reduce effort. Legal take of adults and illegal take of eggs may be significantly impacting the remaining population. Surprisingly, we observed no significant correlation between density of coastal development and clutch density, adult emergence success or hatching success for either species. A significant relationship exists however, between density of coastal development and incidence of misorientation events in loggerhead hatchlings but not in green turtle hatchlings. Effective protection of known nesting habitat and the elimination of exploitation of remaining adults and eggs within the population are critical to its recovery.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Monitoring and conservation of critically reduced marine turtle nesting populations: lessons from the Cayman Islands

Bell

Solomon

Blumenthal

et al. 2007

Animal Conservation

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“…For the captive-bred turtle, size at recapture was 75.5 cm SCL and 62.5 kg. As size at release from the Cayman Turtle Farm averages 29 cm SCL and 3.6 kg (Wood & Wood 1993, Bjorndal et al 2003b), this suggests a mean growth rate of 6.4 cm yr -1 . Despite the shallow nature of much of the study area, use of ultrasonic tags greatly facilitated TDR recovery.…”

Section: Capture Datamentioning

confidence: 96%

Life in (and out of) the lagoon: fine-scale movements of green turtles tracked using time-depth recorders

Blumenthal¹,

Austin²,

Bothwell³

et al. 2010

Aquat. Biol.

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Tracking fine-scale movements in relation to threats is fundamental to the management of exploited marine species, yet there is considerable difficulty associated with gathering such data at sea. By combining a capture-recapture study with deployment of time-depth recorders (TDRs) and ultrasonic tags, we elucidated distribution and daily movements of juvenile green turtles Chelonia mydas exposed to a legal marine turtle fishery in the Cayman Islands. For instrumented turtles, distinct diel activity patterns were observed: dives during the day were shorter and more active than those at night, implying diurnal foraging and nocturnal resting. Spatially, while capture and recapture locations suggested fidelity to a shallow lagoon, when turtles were fitted with TDRs and ultrasonic tags we demonstrated that they regularly moved out of the lagoon and onto the reef, where they could legally be captured in the marine turtle fishery. Our results are thus novel and valuable in a management context in that we demonstrated that seemingly protected aggregations of juvenile green turtles within a lagoon were, in fact, exposed to legal capture on a near-daily basis. This emphasizes the importance of assessing diel activity patterns of juvenile marine turtles, particularly with respect to directed take and other threats.

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“…For rookeries which underwent heavy exploitation on and near the nesting beach, oceanic movements during the internesting period may have been advantageous. It has been suggested that some turtles nesting in the Cayman Islands may represent recent recruits, following the near extirpation of the historical rookery (Wood & Wood 1994, Aiken et al 2001. If this is the case, these colonizing individuals might be expected to possess low nesting site fidelity, which could increase the frequency of behaviors such as oceanic movements during the internesting interval or shifting between island nesting sites.…”

Section: Local Habitat Utilizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By the early 1800s, massive exploitation caused a huge decline in the Cayman Islands green turtle rookery (Lewis 1940), and by the 20th century, rookeries here were considered extinct (Groombridge 1982). However, recent surveys have revealed that nesting by green and loggerhead turtles persists at low levels (Wood & Wood 1994, Aiken et al 2001. Additionally, nesting by green turtles released from the Cayman Turtle Farm as hatchlings or yearlings has been documented (Bell et al 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Satellite tracking highlights the need for international cooperation in marine turtle management

Blumenthal¹,

Solomon²,

Bell³

et al. 2006

Endang. Species Res.

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We present detailed results of a satellite tracking project following 10 adult female turtles from the Cayman Islands, thought to have once been one of the world's largest rookeries. By tracking the movements of 7 green turtles Chelonia mydas and 3 loggerhead turtles Caretta caretta from now critically reduced rookeries we defined key habitats for internesting movement, migration, and foraging in a range of Caribbean jurisdictions. Turtles tracked from the Cayman Islands traveled to foraging grounds in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and the USA. This range encompasses a > 2000 km stretch of Caribbean coastline and the Florida Keys, highlighting the need for international cooperation in identifying and mitigating foraging ground threats. For one of the green turtles, foraging site fidelity was elucidated over the course of two reproductive seasons, and oceanic internesting intervals/post-nesting oceanic circles were defined for the first time in Atlantic loggerhead turtles. In addition to fundamental and applied insights into the biology of the 2 species, this research elucidates geographic scale for potential ecological effects of past decimation of rookeries in the Cayman Islands and highlights the effectiveness of community efforts in support of conservation research.

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Sea turtles of the Cayman Islands

Cited by 10 publications

References 4 publications

Monitoring and conservation of critically reduced marine turtle nesting populations: lessons from the Cayman Islands

Monitoring and conservation of critically reduced marine turtle nesting populations: lessons from the Cayman Islands

Life in (and out of) the lagoon: fine-scale movements of green turtles tracked using time-depth recorders

Satellite tracking highlights the need for international cooperation in marine turtle management

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