World Status, Exploitation and Trade - WIDECAST

PAKISTANPOPULATION:Chelonia mydasNesting sites The best known nest sites are in Sind Province, wherenesting is known or suspected to occur on most beaches and sand covesbetween Manora Lighthouse, at the entrance to Karachi harbour, and CapeMonze, some 40 km to the west. Virtually all known nesting in this areatakes place just west of Karachi city, along a 20 km stretch of beachdivided by a rocky headland into two sectors, Sandspit and Hawkes Bay, withmost nesting on the Hawkes Bay sector (Kabraji and Firdous, 1984). The Sindcoast around Cape Monze is predominantly rocky and unsuitable for turtlenesting. Nesting, mainly or entirely by C. mydas , also occurs at pointsalong the extensive Makran coast of Baluchistan (Kabraji and Firdous, 1984);Ormara (Telford, 1976), Ras Jiunri (= Jiwani) (Shockley, 1949) and AstolaIsland (Butler, 1877) have been cited in the past. Recent information(Groombridge et al. , 1988) confirms that C. mydas still nests at Ormara andJiwani, also at Gwadar and Pasni , and on Astola (= Haft Talar) (A.L. Rao,pers. comm.). A recent aerial survey (Groombridge, Rao and Kabraji,unpublished) found no evidence of significant nesting other than in thevicinity of these sites. There are five nesting beaches around the Jiwaniheadland, about 8-10 km in total length, and a similar length around thewest side of Ormara West Bay. The beach on Astola approaches 2 km (Rao,pers. comm.). Gwadar and Pasni are very minor sites.Nesting numbers An annual total of around 1500 C. mydas nests are laidon the 5 km stretch of beach at Hawkes Bay where nesting is most dense(Kabraji and Firdous, 1984). The annual mean for the years 1980-1985 is1286 (Table 153). Since the entire Hawkes Bay-Sandspit area provides some20 km of suitable nesting beach, there could be as many as 6000 nests eachyear (Kabraji and Firdous, 1984). However, nesting density is markedlyhigher along the 5 km reference beach than elsewhere, and it may also beassumed that each female will nest on more than one occasion, possiblyseveral times. On this basis, the total number of females per year may becloser to 2000-3000 than 6000. On the other hand, an unknown proportion ofnests are likely to have been missed, and the figure does not include theapparently sparse nesting that occurs elsewhere along the Sind coast.Recent information from Baluchistan suggests that small numbers nest atGwadar and Pasni, at least one or two hundred nest annually on the"lighthouse beach" at Jiwani, and probably one or two thousand at Ormara(Groombridge et al , 1988). Four additional beaches have recently beenlocated on the Jiwani headland (Groombridge, Rao and Kabraji, unpublished),and total numbers in this region are likely to be similar to those at Ormaraand Karachi. Large or moderate numbers appear to have nested on Astola inthe last century (Butler, 1877). Nesting is still dense on Astola,comparable with maximum intensity on Hawkes Bay-Sandspit (Rao, pers.comm.). Suspected numbers at the Baluchistan sites combined with knownnesting numbers near Karachi make Pakistan one of the most importantC. mydas nesting areas in the Indian Ocean and one of the world's moreimportant turtle coasts.Trends in nesting numbers No detailed information Is available.However, exploitation appears to have been intense at times, althoughperhaps irregular, and it seems likely that it would have had an impact onnesting numbers. Incomplete evidence suggests that one population, nestingin the Sonmianl area of Baluchistan, may have been extirpated. Localresidents and earlier literature report that turtles formerly nested there,and a representative of the main company involved in reptile exploitation inPakistan confirmed that turtles had been taken from Sonmianl. An aerial398