World Status, Exploitation and Trade - WIDECAST

MEXICOpeninsula. It seems almost certain that most, if not all, officiallyrecorded Pacific Green Turtle harvest in Mexico at that time took placehere. Parsons quotes official production figures for 1956 of some 17 000 kgof fresh turtle and 5300 kg of dried turtle produced by Baja Californiafishery cooperatives, most coming from the southern part of the peninsula;the latter figure accords exactly with that given in M4rquez (1976a), theformer disagrees by exactly a factor of ten, with Parsons almost certainlyin error. Most were taken north in trucks to the border towns althoughothers were flown from Laguna Ojo de Liebre and Bahia Magdalena. A turtlecannery operated at this time in Bahia de Asunci6n south of Laguna Ojo deLiebre which canned up to 100 tons of Green Turtle soup in a season,virtually all marketed on the peninsula; the turtles were taken in thesummer months using nets set in lagoons and estuaries along this coast.Caldwell (1963) stated that by then most Green Turtles landed in BajaCalifornia were taken in the central and southern Gulf of California,although commercial fishing evidently continued on the west coast of thepeninsula - he noted that turtles were still commercially taken as far northas Bahia de San Quintin (c. 30°15'N) on the west coast and also in BahiaMagdalena where a turtle cannery apparently existed at the time of writing.Turtle harvest at this time was considerable and Caldwell stated that, forexample, several thousand were landed each year in Bahia de los Angeles onthe central Gulf coast of Baja California. He observed over 500 landed in athree-week period in summer (June-July) 1962 and just under 290 taken inFebruary of that year when fishing effort was lower. He stated that, alongwith tourism, the turtle fishery formed the economy of the area and notedthat in other villages in the region the turtle fishery often formed thesole source of income.ii.MichoacanPrior to the 1950s the coastal breeding sites of C. mydas were relativelyundisturbed as the coastline was virtually uninhabited and of difficultaccess. The only recorded egg harvest appears to have been that by theNahuatl Indians who lived slightly further inland, on the Pacific slopes ofthe Sierra Madre del Sur, where their main population centres were Pomaro,Coire, Maquili and Ostula. From here sporadic trips were made to thenesting beaches during the peak of the turtle nesting season to collecteggs. These were transported by mule and donkey to the villages where theywere eaten fresh or hard-boiled and dried to supplement their otherwiselargely vegetarian diet.During the 1950s coastal areas were increasingly cleared, mainly for theplanting of coconut palms and banana and lime trees, and during the late1950s the coastal settlements of Maruata, Colola and Motin del Oro wereestablished. Access to the area remained difficult by land (a road toMaruata was not built until 1978) and at this time use of turtles in thearea appears to have been still relatively low-level subsistence (apparentlystill very largely, or perhaps exclusively, eggs). During the late 1960scommercial markets for sea turtle products opened up in the region,involving both leather and eggs. Eggs were apparently exploited verylargely by the Nahuatl themselves, and settlements around the nestingbeaches increased rapidly. Most egg collection was carried out by theinhabitants of Colola who, according to Alvarado ( in li tt to C. Freese,12 July 1985), derived 90% of their income from the sale of eggs. Cliff tonet al (1981) quote Nahauatl informants as claiming that during the early1970s 70 000 eggs were collected each night of the breeding season at Cololaduring the breeding season and a further 15 000-20 000 from Maruata Bay,364