World Status, Exploitation and Trade - WIDECAST

AtMEXICOalthough Alvarado and Figueroa (1986) state that the total collected atColola at this time was nearer 40 000 eggs per night.Until the end of 1963 processing of turtle leather in Mexico was on a local,artisanal, level. During 1964 with the increase in international demand forthe product, larger scale, industrial processing began (Marquez, 1976a).The international market for turtle leather was initially filled mainly byexploitation of Lepidochelys olivacea . whose leather is considered of higherquality; however, by the end of the 1960s this species had been seriouslydepleted and attention was turned to Chelonia mydas . first harvestingwas carried out by fishermen from the nearby states of Colima, Jalisco andGuerrero and was, reportedly, obstructed by the Nahuatl who saw it asconflicting with their own commercial interests based on egg collecting.Soon, however, the Nahuatl had themselves begun harvesting turtles, usingnets placed directly off the nesting beaches (Cliffton et al . 1981).Until the mid-1970s the turtles were apparently harvested exclusively fortheir skins. Cliffton et al note that during 1976 turtles netted off thenesting beaches were stripped of their hides, which were sold for 50 pesos(US$2.20) each, and the carcases were thrown into the sea. The hides weretransported by boat to the coast of Colima. In 1977 the Industria PesqueriaOccidental (IPOSA) began full-scale processing of legally taken turtles at aplant in Barra de Navidad. Hides and meat appear to have been the principalproducts, with bones, entrails and carapaces turned into chicken feed.Figures for C. mydas harvest in Michoacan for 1965-77 are given in Table 145above. As noted above, Mirquez ( in litt. , 29 August 1988) considers thesedata unreliable. According to Marquez ( in litt. ) IPOSA was harvestingL. olivacea nearly exclusively, not C. mydas , and catch permits were onlyfor the former species, not the latter. Mirques also states that much ofthe information presented by Cliffton et al . cited in this account, mustrefer to L. olivacea .In 1978 a new coastal highway reached the area, passing within 200 m of themain nesting beaches; smugglers from the northen states of Sinaloa andSonora gained easy access to the MichoacAn turtles and began offering higherprices than IPOSA. Since then most poached turtles have been smuggled tothe north for meat consumption (Alvarado and Figueroa, 1986).Domestic trade Chelonia mydas meat is predominanty consumed in northernMexico (see above), where it is of high commercial value (in 1979 costed at100 pesos or US$4.44 a kg live weight, which was higher than the cost ofbeef). Eggs are also sold in large numbers in Mexican cities.International trade As discussed at length above, turtle meat in manyforms (live, fresh, salted, dried, calipee) has in the past been exported inconsiderable quantity from Mexico, although it appears that since at leastthe 1940s virtually all meat produced has been consumed in Mexico itself.Annual reports to CITES note trivial amounts of meat and soup exported(mainly to the USA and most classified as illegal or personal) since 1977.Mexico has produced some tortoiseshell, although production has been erratic(see Table 144) and there is no evidence of any large scale exports sincethe early 1970s - Japan, which has been by far the largest consumer oftortoiseshell in recent years, records imports from Mexico of only 44 kg inthe years 1972-86 inclusive (8 kg in 1973, 36 kg in 1983). Table 146summarises exports of Eretmochelys recorded in annual reports to CITES for1978-85. Leather items, oil and eggs are excluded as there is considerableuncertainty that these are indeed Eretmochelys (in the case of the last two,the amounts involved are trivial, and in the case of leather items are36S