World Status, Exploitation and Trade - WIDECAST

MAYOTTEMigration No direct information is available. Frazier (1985) suggeststhat the Mayotte C. mydas population may be largely resident, although someinterchange of males could occur within the Comores group as a whole.POPULATION : Kretmochelys imbricataNesting sites Although the species appears to be relatively common, andwidespread in Mayotte waters, confirmed nest sites are very few. Frazier(1985) records single nests at Saziley, and Papani and South Moya on PamanziIsland (all these beaches being more important as C. mydas nest sites).Bonnet (pers. comm.) found no evidence of E. imbricata nesting in 1986.Nesting numbers The nesting population appears to be very small. WhilstFrazier found only three nests in Mayotte (in 1972), additional nesting mayoccur, but is difficult to monitor accurately.Nesting season The E. imbricata nesting season in the Comores groupappears to extend from late December until May (Frazier, 1985).Foraging sites Mayotte possesses outstanding reef areas, providingexcellent potential feeding habitat for E. imbricata , which is widelydistributed around the island. Hawksbills, mostly immatures, were seen inshallow waters in the north-east, east, south and west of Mayotte (Frazier,1985) .Migration According to Frazier (1985), Mayotte probably has a residentE. imbricata population, possibly augmented by turtles from other parts ofthe Comores group.THREATSThere are dogs around all the inhabited beaches and feral populations evenon some remote beaches. They are known to dig up eggs and probably also eathatchlings. Some of the beaches had been affected by sand removal (Bonnetpers. comm., 1987).EXPLOITATIONCommodity Both C. mydas and E. imbricata are killed for meat, mostly forpersonal or family use, and some people are said to prefer the latterspecies. The people of Malagasy extraction generally eat turtle, but manyof the Swahili-speakers do not. There is some trade in shell (Frazier,1985) .Hunting intensity Turtles are killed whenever they are encountered, andtheir remains can be found all round the island. The most intense huntingwas at Moya and Papani beaches. Frazier (1985) estimated that on averageabout half of the females emerging to nest were killed. Bonnet (pers.comm.) confirmed that poaching still continued in 1986, and found theremains of a dozen turtles on Moya beach, of which five had been killedwithin the past week. Fishermen were seen on many of the remote beaches,and 80% of beaches examined bore the traces of recent human presence. Atleast two of the 27 turtles known to have emerged on the night of 3 A June1986 were killed by poachers. In August 1986, Bonnet ( in litt , 22 April346