Here a green sea turtle digs a nest for its eggs on the beach. They and their offspring are particularly at risk. But targeted protective measures have helped this endangered species.
In the Aldabra Reef of the Indian Ocean, part of the Seychelles, nesting female green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) have long been hunted for their meat and rare shells. But a 1968 ban on turtle fishing – the first in the western Indian Ocean – put an end to that and may have saved Aldabra’s turtle population from extinction.
All the better that Adam Pritchard from the University of Exeter in Cornwall and his colleagues can now report that the species population of these sea creatures has been able to recover over the past 50 years. The biologists had monitored population numbers on the Aldabra Reef by counting egg clutches over a number of years. It turned out that while in the late 1960s only 2,000 to 3,000 nests were recorded, according to the data of the last few years their number has risen again to 15,000 per year. According to the researchers, the largest increase in clutches is at Settlement Beach on Picard, where exploitation of nesting females has historically been most intense.
“The continued increase in Aldabra’s green turtle population demonstrates the effectiveness of long-term conservation and clearly shows that we can be optimistic about marine conservation,” said senior author Brendan Godley of the University of Exeter. And with today’s turtle population on Aldabra still well below estimated pre-exploitation numbers, the population could continue to grow in the future – provided the species continues to be effectively protected.