World Status, Exploitation and Trade - WIDECAST

GUATEMALAHunting intensity Rosales-Loessener100% of eggs laid were collected.Historical trends Before 1981, thereof turtles (Rosales-Loessener, 1987).(1987) considered that virtuallywas a low-level subsistence catchDomestic trade The only domestic trade is the sale of eggs, which aresold by the beach collectors for about Q3 (US$1.11) a dozen and which fetchQ4-5 in Puerto Barrios, the main market.Internatioij^al trade Guatemala ratified CITES in 1979. Very little tradeis recorded. All trade reported by CITES has been with the USA except for arecord of "1000 bottles of Chelonia mydas derivatives" (presumably oil)imported to Guatemala from the Cayman Islands in 1980. Trade with the USA(all in the years 1980-84 inclusive) has amounted to: 40 eggs of C. mydas .one body and one shell of C. mydas . 12 eggs of "cheloniidae" and one body,one carving and 28 unspecified products of Eretmochelys imbricata .GUATEMALA:PACIFICPOPULATION:Chelonia mydasNesting sites Little specific information although the species isreported to nest along the barrier beaches (La Rosario, Las Lisas and ElHawaii) fronting the Chiquimulilla Canal along the eastern half of thecoastline (Cornelius, 1981); there is indirect evidence that the speciesnests, or at least used to nest, in the region of Ocos on the Mexican border(Coe and Flannery, 1967, cited in Cornelius, 1981),Nesting numbers The population along the Chiquimulilla Canal wasconsidered sizeable by Cornelius (1981); at least 20 individuals a nighthave been observed along a IS-krn stretch of beach during the nesting seasonin September-October (Cornelius, 1981).Nesting season Given as September-October (Cornelius, 1981).POPULATION: Eretmochelys imbricataNo definite evidence has been located that the Hawksbill occurs in PacificGuatemalan waters. The species does however occur, albeit now apparently invery low numbers, in adjacent Mexican waters and is reported to nest onbeaches in El Salvador (Cornelius, 1981); it is thus likely to occur inPacific Guatemalan waters, even if not to nest there.THREATSIncidental catch by shrimp trawlers appears to be heavy. Cornelius (1981)cited reports that 150-200 turtle carcasses washed ashore annually on thesouth-eastern Pacific coast of Guatemala, a major shrimping ground; it wasnot stated which species were involved, although it seems likely that aconsiderable proportion were C. mydas as this is apparently the principalnesting species here.211