Sea Turtle Recovery Action Plan for St. Kitts and Nevis - WIDECAST

CEP Technical Report No. 17
IMPLEMENTING THE RECOVERY PLAN: We could tell one another
like our friends, mother and father, families and neighbours. If you want to
tell the whole world, you could call on a telephone, or write a letter or an article
for a magazine or newspaper, or go to everyone's houses, or appear on
television. The Honorable Roy Jones [Constituency Representative] and the
policemen should come and talk to the people of St. Kitts and Nevis and tell
them to help us with the sea turtles. Tell them -- "Don't trouble their eggs,
don't cut off their flippers, and if you trouble their eggs all the time there will
be less turtles. Also, don't take them home as pets." If we tell people the
first time, they won't agree with us. But if they don't agree with us, we could
go on telling them and explaining to them that we want the sea turtles to live
always. Then maybe they will agree with us.
II. STATUS AND DISTRIBUTION OF SEA TURTLES IN ST. KITTS & NEVIS
2.1 Caretta caretta, Loggerhead Sea Turtle
There are no indigenous common names applied to this species; the preferred name is
"loggerhead". The loggerhead turtle is recognized by its large head, thick, somewhat tapered
carapace (=shell), brown and gold or reddish-brown colouration, and characteristically heavy
encrustation of invertebrate epifauna (especially barnacles). The large head and strong jaws, for
which the species was named, are necessary adaptations to a diet of mollusks and hard-shelled
crabs; tunicates, fishes, and plants are also eaten (Dodd, 1988). Adults attain a straight carapace
length of 120 cm and weigh up to 200 kg (440 lb) (Pritchard et al., 1983). There are typically
five pairs of lateral scutes (large scales) on the shell (Figure 3).
The species has a wide oceanic distribution; in the Atlantic Ocean individuals have been
sighted as far north as Newfoundland (Squires, 1954) and northern Europe (Brongersma, 1972)
and as far south as Argentina (Frazier, 1984). Nesting grounds are often located in temperate
latitudes, with the greatest numbers of nesting females recorded along the Atlantic coast of
Florida (USA) and Masirah Island (Oman). Nesting is also reported from various islands of the
Greater and Lesser Antilles (although firm records are not always available), the Caribbean
coasts of Mexico and Central America, and the Atlantic coast of South America from Venezuela
to Brazil, as summarized by Dodd (1988). The greatest threat to the large breeding colonies in
the USA is drowning in shrimp trawls (U. S. National Research Council, 1990).
It is generally conceded that loggerheads do not nest in St. Kitts/Nevis, but "an occasional
nesting loggerhead" on the Southeast Peninsula was reported by Campbell Evelyn in
d'Arbeau (1989). Individuals are sometimes seen offshore, but are rarely captured. Meylan
(1983) reported that "the few individuals that have been seen were immature." One was reported
to have been caught inside the reef at Dieppe Bay, and another off Key Ghaut (St. Kitts). The
fishermen of Nevis periodically report "strange turtles" which may be loggerheads (A. Barrett,
pers. comm., 1992). The species is considerably rarer than either the green turtle or hawksbill.
The meat is presumably eaten when available. There are no population estimates.
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