‘Animal Planet’ tells of lost Tobago turtles

The outcry over the slaughter of turtles in Tobago was highlighted by the influential Animal Planet Channel. This cable television channel globally and locally broadcasts shows like Crocodile Hunter and The Jeff Corwin Experience, and is a member of Discovery Communications Inc, along with the Discovery Channel, TLC, the Travel Channel and BBC America.

Last Monday Animal Planet posted a story on its internet website condemning the killing of turtles in Tobago, entitled “Open season on turtles in Tobago.” Author Patricia Collier stated: “A harsh contradiction seems to darken the horizon of the otherwise sunny Caribbean island of Tobago: while verbally committed to sea turtle conservation, Tobago allows the endangered animals to be hunted each year in an ‘open’ season.” She noted that last October  the World Travel Awards in New York City had chosen Tobago as “Home to the best eco-destination in the world.” and in November the Caribbean Travel Awards Committee in London dubbed Tobago, “The number one eco-destination in the Caribbean.” But Collier pondered: “In some areas on this award-winning island however, mere yards from expensive hotels, visiting beachgoers commonly find the fresh remains of sea turtles; a stark contrast to the pictures painted in the adulation recently bestowed upon the island.”

In another contradiction, she said, Tobago and other Caribbean territories had participated for several years in a project called the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network, or WIDECAST to aid six endangered species of  sea turtles. Moreso Trinidad and Tobago has signed environmental treaties like CITES and The Cartagena Convention. Collier said: “Yet despite verbal commitments to preserve the sea turtle population, the written words of the wildlife laws of Trinidad and Tobago still allow male sea turtles to be taken in an open season from Oct 1 to March 31 — and poachers have been quick to take advantage of this loophole. Local activists said the poachers know the laws as well as the lawmakers do.” She said Tobago’s Leatherback, Green and Hawksbill sea turtles were listed as endangered species worldwide. “An island conservation group, Save Our Sea Turtles, estimated that from 2000 to 2002 they buried the mutilated and butchered carcasses of an estimated 15 percent of the entire nesting population of the leatherbacks for that time period on the island.”

According to Save Our Sea Turtles, said Collier, additional volunteers to patrol the beaches were needed, as well as serious enforcement of current turtle protection laws. Collier warned: “Since Tobago relies on tourism as the main part of its economy, conservationists worldwide believe a continued lack of turtle protection by Tobago may bite the hand that feeds the island and tarnish the glitter on those recent travel awards.”