World Status, Exploitation and Trade - WIDECAST

SOMALIAwork, five 20-m nets. Remoras were also used by the Barjunis for catchingturtles. Usually, they attached themselves to a turtle sleeping on the seabed, whereupon a diver would follow down the line to attach a noose of heavyrope to the turtle's flippers. Alternatively, if the turtle was too deep, aspecial type of grapnel or "turtle iron" would be lowered down the remora'stethering line to hook the turtle. Each remora could be used to catch about40 turtles before it tired "of this un-natural life". Turtles are alsokilled on the nesting beaches by fishermen who camp there for this purpose(Simonetta and Magnoni, 1986). Goodwin (1971) related that during Travis'swork, 79% of the turtles were caught in nets, 14% by remoras, 4% by turningon the beach and 3% by other means. Travis (1967) provided a description ofhow scutes were removed from Hawksbill carapaces by burying them in sand fortwo or three weeks.Historical trends Travis (1967) was involved in the management of aturtle fishery operating off the southern coast of Somalia to supply acanning factory at Kismayo around 1963-1964. The operation only had alicence to operate in the southern half of the country and Travis Impliedthat there was little turtle exploitation to the north of Mogadisho. Duringone year, a total of 8436 C. mydas were caught along 400 km of coast betweenBur Gavo and Herca; 62% of the turtles were males. In the Barjun Islandsalone, 3800 turtles were said to have been caught in one year (Goodwin,1971). Travis reported that he had to persuade the fishermen to Increasesubstantially their rate of harvesting turtles to keep the canning factorysupplied. Previously, he implied that the local Barjuns had only fished forsubsistence purposes, as most of the other Somalis were Moslem and did noteat turtles. Around 1975/76, the Barjuni Islanders were compulsorilyrelocated to the mainland at Kulmis. Although some return, the huntingpressure has probably declined. At that time there was said to be littledemand for Hawksbill shell, although Travis (1967) reported that a few werekilled for this purpose. He said that the value of a set of Hawksbillshell, weighing about 5 lbs (2 kg) was worth about £1.50, whereas "formerlyten times this figure for a similar set was usual".An FAO fishery consultant (I.I.B. Robertson in litt. to J. Frazier,26 January 1978) in Somalia reported that it was believed that there waslittle exploitation of turtles for foreign markets since Travis had ceasedhis activities. However, CITES Annual Reports (see below) record the importof 18.6 t of turtle meat to F.R. Germany in 1977 from Somalia, and Frazier( in litt. to F. Compton, 1 December 1977) reported that there had been"repeated efforts to import Green Turtle to the United Kingdom". Robertson( in litt . 10 June 1987) indicated that France had been declaring Somalia as,the country of origin for imports of turtle meat around the same time.Fagotto ( in litt . , 29 August 1986) reported that there was a much greaterdemand for turtle meat in restaurants in 1984 than there had been in 1970,and that the number of polished carapaces on sale in tourist shops hadsimilarly increased.Domestic trade About 15-20 tourist shops in Mogadishu were said to beselling polished carapaces in 1984. An offer of 500 Somali shillings for alive turtle about a metre long was turned down as being inadequate(F. Fagotto, in litt. . 29 August 1986). Most of the carapaces sold aresmall, usually less than 60 cm; the larger ones (c. 1 m) are not popular.There is said to be a well-established cottage industry producing decoratedcarapaces in Lower Juba, centred on Kismayo (I.I.B. Robertson in litt .10 June 1988).481