World Status, Exploitation and Trade - WIDECAST

INTRODUCTIONrelatively large average size. Schulz (1987) reported that 13 carapaceplates from the large Hawksbills sometimes to be found in the region of theMoluccas and Irian Jaya, the source of the thickest and highest qualityshell in Indonesia, could weigh around 4 kg, but this appears to beexceptional. Milliken and Tokunaga (1987a) assessed the weight of bekkoimported to Japan from 42 countries between 1984 and 1986. The overallaverage for this period was 1.06 kg of dorsal shell per animal, but theweights of shell from different regions varied considerably, the Caribbeanproducing the heaviest shell, at 1.34 kg, and the Indian Ocean/Africa thelightest at 0.74 kg (see Table 4). There does not appear to be a precisecorrelation between the length of carapace and the weight of shell to beobtained from it, as the data in Table 5 indicate.Table 3. C. mydas parts and products: (A) weight of various body parts ofa 96 kg female C. mydas from the Gulf of Mexico (data from Ingle and Smith,cited by Hirth, 1971) (the figures for meat alone are calculated usinggeneral percentages from sources cited by Hirth); (B) weight of calipee fromSeychelles turtles, data from Hornell (1927); (C) weight of meat from a140-kg Seychelles female, data from Mortimer (1984); (D) weight of productsfrom a 99-kg female slaughtered at Aden, Yemen (PDR) (in this case theweight figures are virtually equivalent to percentages) (Hirth andHollingworth, 1973).Item Weight (kg) Percentage of total(A)Meat plus flippersMeat alone49.942.752 %40-41.9 %Calipee 6.4 6.7 %CarapaceEntrailsHeadTailNeckMajor organs14.910.12.3.21.62.615.5 %10.5 %2.4 %.24 %1.7 %2.73 %(B)Calipee 1.5 1.1 %(average turtle weight of 300 lb [136 kg])(C)Meat, flippers, tail, neck (wet weight)55.5Meat, flippers, tail, neck (dry, salted)19.0Intestines 7.039.6 %13.6 %5.0 %(D)Meat (from body plus flippers)28.4Calipee (plastron plus carapace)5.7Fat 3.23