World Status, Exploitation and Trade - WIDECAST

CAYMAN ISLANDSMany turtles were turned on the nesting beaches, but some were caught on thefeeding grounds to the south of Cuba. By 1711, the first signs of depletionof turtle stocks were recognised, and their extinction was inuninent by about1800. The population of experienced turtle fishermen who then inhabited theislands were forced to sail further afield for their quarry, and fishedchiefly around the Miskito Cays of Nicaragua by around 18A0. By 1900, theCayman turtle population was essentially extinct, but 12-17 schooners stillfished for turtles into the 1940s, catching about 2000-3000 turtles a year,mostly off Nicaragua. A turtle soup cannery opened in 1952, but closed thefollowing year as it failed to develop the predicted American market. In1956, the Cayman Islands exported a total of 4109 live C. mydas and 24 000pounds (10 909 kg) of calipee.Domestic trade See under RANCHING.International trade The Cayman Islands, as a dependent territory of theUK, have been included in the UK's ratification of CITES only since July1979. The major commercial shipments of C. mydas reported to have beenexported from the Cayman Islands are shown in Table 33. In almost everycase where an export was recorded, the corresponding import reported wassmaller. All of the C. mydas products recorded in the Cayman Islands AnnualReport are believed to have originated in the turtle farm. There is a verygood correlation between the quantities in Table 33 and the exports reportedby the farm in Table 38 for the years 1980-1983. A variety of othercountries have been reported as the destination of C. mydas productsexported from the Cayman Islands, and these are shown in the first half ofTable 34. Exports reached a peak in 1979 and 1980, in terms of volume, andwere sent to the greatest variety of countries in 1980. This corresponds tothe period at which Cayman Turtle Farm was forced to slaughter and sell offmost of its stock (see below).Many products said to have originated in the Cayman Islands have beenrecorded in CITES Annual Reports as re-exports, and the countries to whichthese re-exports have been sent are shown in Table 34. The number ofdestination countries reached a peak in 1982 and 1983, and this probablyrepresents a time delay of two years between the primary export and there-export of manufactured products. The countries reported to havere-exported Cayman Island turtle products are shown in Table 35, the mainones being F.R. Germany, the UK, Italy and Switzerland. Attention should bedrawn to the re-exports of large quantities of turtle skins from Mexicoreported on import into Hong Kong in 1981, 1982 and 1983. There is noindication that the Cayman Islands ever exported any turtle skins to Mexicoand so it seems most probable that the skins were of wild origin, having hada false origin declared on the export documents.Japanese Customs statistics recorded few imports of bekko from the CaymanIslands prior to 1972, but imports since that date have been substantial(Table 36). Port landing statistics clearly indicate some landings ofE. imbricata in the Caymans (Table 32), but the quantities seem too low toaccount for the volume of imports to Japan. A possible explanation is thatthe exports were from other ports in the Caribbean but despatched by aCayman Islands company (Luxmoore and Canin, 1985). The imports of othertortoiseshell and turtle skins reported between 1980 and 1984 seemcomparable with the quantities of shell and skin reported as having beenexported by the Cayman Islands (Table 33).122