World Status, Exploitation and Trade - WIDECAST

MEXICOIn 1896 the turtle processing plant which had been sited in Texas (seerelevant account) was relocated to Tampico in extreme northern Veracruz,apparently because turtles were by then more easily obtainable there than inthe northern Gulf of Mexico (Hildebrand, 1981). The subsequent fate of theplant is unknown.Although detailed information is lacking, it seems that considerable numbersof Green Turtles were exported from Mexico to the USA in the first half ofthe present century. Parsons (1962) notes that exports to the USA from IslaMujeres, the centre of the turtle industry on the Caribbean side of theYucatan Peninsula, numbered as many as 2000 a year. In the 1950s, however,it seems that this trade declined, with claims that taxes and export dutiesmade the trade uneconomical. In 1956 there were reportedly several hundredturtles in the crawls at Isla Mujeres for which it was said that no marketcould be found (Parsons, 1962).Official figures for C. mydas production for 19A8-73 from the easternseaboard of Mexico are given under C. mydas in Table 144 (figures forPacific Chelonia are given under C. agassizi ) . In contrast to the Pacific,there appears to be relatively little underlying trend for the period1948-1970, although shorter-term trends are discernible: from 1948 to 1952,over 250 tonnes of fresh meat were produced each year (mean 306 tonnes peryear); production then dropped to below 200 tonnes per year from 1953 to1959 (mean 127 tonnes per year); the years 1960-62 were again highproduction (over 300 tonnes per year, mean 383 tonnes per year); post 1962,production has again been low (mean of 97 tonnes per year for 1963-1971 and1973, there being no legal harvest in 1972), with the lowest recordedharvests for the whole period in the two most recent years (30 tonnes in1971, 40 in 1972).The drop in production in the early 1950s accords with Parsons's observationabove and could thus perhaps be explained by a drop in demand from theexport market, implying that much of the officially recorded harvest wasexport-led at that time. Until 1955 the eastern Green Turtle harvestconsiderably exceeded the officially recorded harvest on the Pacific coast(totals for 1948-55 inclusive of 2020 tonnes and 530 tonnes respectively).Since then, the Pacific harvest has become of far greater importance, andhas exceeded that on the east coast in all years for which records areavailable except 1960.As noted above, official figures indicate that 412 Green Turtles were takenin the region in 1980. Total weight of the 312 taken in the Gulf of Mexicowas 15 427 kg; assuming the 100 taken in the Caribbean weighed on averagethe same, overall harvest was c. 20.4 tonnes. Assuming this figure isequivalent to "live weight" production in Table 144, then the harvest issmaller than, but of the same order of magnitude as, that recorded in 1971and 1973.Accounts of the present rarity of Eretmochelys off Pacific Mexico stronglyimply that most, if not all, official production post 1963 is from theeastern seaboard of Mexico; it is possible, however, that some of theproduction recorded in 1953-56 originates on the Pacific coastEretmochelys was reportedly fairly abundant there at that time andtortoiseshell was processed in Baja California (see account for PacificMexico). Officially recorded national production of tortoiseshell fromE. imbricata was very erratic in the period 1948-70 (Table 144), with fouryears when production exceeded one tonne (1954, 1955, 1968, 1973), nineyears when annual production was less than 0.3 tonnes and two periods when354