World Status, Exploitation and Trade - WIDECAST

CAYMAN ISLANDSPOPULATIONThe breeding populations of C. mydas and E. imbricata are believed to havebeen essentially extinct since 1900, and prior to 1980 turtles were onlyrarely seen in local waters. Nesting by C. caretta and C. mydas stilloccurs sporadically, and in 1983 a total of 21 nests of both species werelocated on the islands. These were incubated at Cayman Turtle Farm, and 319C. mydas hatchlings were released (Anon., 1985f). Hatchling and taggedsub-adult C. mydas bred at Cayman Turtle Farm have been released in coastalwaters since 1980 and, recently, tagged turtles have been regularly seen inthe sounds and reefs surrounding the islands. The population of juvenilesis tentatively estimated to be about 500 (Anon., 1985f).Foraging populations of C. mydas and E. imbricata occur in the North Soundand on other shelf areas (Parsons, 1984), and juvenile E. imbricata weresaid to be common in coastal waters (Bacon, 1971), though this may havereferred to a 1940 report.EXPLOITATIONCommodity Green Turtles have historically been a very important sourceof food in the Cayman Islands. The people of Grand Cayman used tospecialise in hunting C. mydas , while E. imbricata was hunted at CaymanBrae, where the inhabitants were said to prefer Hawksbill meat (Parsons,1962).Hunting intensity Turtles are theoretically only allowed to be hunted inCayman Island waters for subsistence use on the islands. The declaredlandings of turtles are given in Table 32 along with the declared productionof Hawksbill shell. There appears to be some discrepancy between the twosets of figures, in that the shell production in 1978 and 1981 indicates atotal harvest of around 1000 E. imbricata (assuming 1 kg of shell peranimal) instead of the 62 reported.Table 32. Catches of turtles reported in port landing records, andofficial statistics for production of E. imbricata shell (Parsons, 1984).1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982C. mydasE. imbricatashell(kg)508