World Status, Exploitation and Trade - WIDECAST

BURMAonly 90%, to perhaps 600 females a season, despite intense egg collectionsince at least the 1890s, suggests that harvest may have been significantlyless than 100% in some seasons or that some immigration has occurred. Giventhe evident increased human activity in the Delta, it seems inevitable thatthe turtle population will decline to complete insignificance in the nearfuture unless appropriate strict controls on egg harvest are immediatelyimposed.The threat posed by turtle hunting cannot be assessed in the absence of anyinformation on its intensity. If, as Maxwell (1911) suggested. GreenTurtles are quite rarely seen off the Burmese coasts, hunting may not bevery significant. In view of the apparent rarity of Hawksbills in theregion, exploitation for shell is almost certain to be deleterious.Some former nest sites (with an uncertain, probably small, proportion ofC. mydas and Hawksbills) no longer support nesting owing either to thespread of human settlements or changes in patterns of coastal erosion anddeposition (Salter, 1983).Turtles are fairly commonly ca'ught by artisanal fisharmen (in nets or onhooks) and eaten or sold. Commercial prawn trawlers catch appreciablenumbers; e.g., 12 turtles in 400 trawls off the Arakan coast (Tarbit, inSalter, 1983: p. 49), or 2-3 in 100 trawls by PPFC trawlers. With 50%mortality this suggests 100 turtles (species composition unknown) killed perseason on the Arakan coast. Given the generally small and/or depletednature of Burmese turtle populations, this is a significant threat.EXPLOITATIONComnodity The main turtle product exploited in Burma is the eggs of allspecies, which are collected and marketed on a huge scale. Some subsistencehunting of adults for meat may occur, particularly on Moscos Islands, wherenesting C. mydas may be killed. Turtles caught accidentally in trawls or onbaited hooks are mostly eaten if they are found dead but may be released ifthey are still alive (Salter, 1983; Maxwell, 1911). Some E. imbricata arecaught for the sale of the shell; mostly from Tenasserim, south of Tavoy,and less from the Arakan coast (Salter, 1983).Hunting intensity virtually all the turtle eggs laid in Burma are saidto be collected either on an opportunistic basis by fishermen and villagersor on an organised basis by village co-operatives for sale mostly to thePeople's Pearl and Fishery Corporation (PPFC). The numbers of eggscollected are given in Table 30. At Thamihla Kyun, most of the eggs are ofC. mydas . with a few L. olivacea and occasional E. imbricata ; fromThekethaung to the Irrawaddy River, they are probably mostly L. olivacea ; atKaingthaung Kyun, mostly L. olivacea with a few E. imbricata ; on KadonlayKyun and Gayedgyi Kyun, they are probably mostly L. olivacea (misidentif iedas C. caretta ) with a few C. mydas . rarely D. coriacea and E. imbricata ; andon South Moscos Island, almost entirely C . mydas . There is a closed seasonfor egg collection on Thamihla Kyun from 1 April to 15 May, which has beenin force since 1874, but it has not always been strictly observed, andanyway it is after the main nesting period for C. mydas (Maxwell, 1911;Salter, 1983). On Thamihla Kyun, 5000 to 10 000 eggs a year are collectedfor artificial incubation and release (Salter, 1983)114