Turtle release draws huge crowds

By Stuart Wilson

The ecosystem in the waters around the Cayman Islands just got a bit richer after the Turtle Centre’s most recent turtle release event held at Governor’s Beach on Friday, 7th November.

The ‘Head Start’ turtle release programme, as it is called, is just that. It gives turtles a head start in the wild.

“They’re raised in our Centre until they are usually between one to three years old and then we release them into the wild.,” noted the Education Programmes Manager from the Turtle Centre, Ms. Shona McGill.

She said at this point their shells have hardened and their only real predators in the open ocean are large sharks and orcas/killer whales.

However, there are still a lot of dangers in the wild such as climate change affecting beaches where turtles lay their eggs and tides washing away their eggs.

Plastics are also a huge problem.

“If each person picks up three pieces of trash per day for a whole year, that’s over one thousand pieces of trash. So imagine if all of us started doing that. We could cause an ocean of change that is desperately needed for the turtles and desperately needed for us too,” Ms McGill told the hundreds of spectators on the beach.

Sea turtles are still a bit of an anomaly to scientists, who said there was quite a bit of information we still do not know about them.

“We know once they make their way into the ocean, they disappear and when they are old enough they come back to lay their eggs. Those years are referred to as the lost years. We do know that they go really deep into indigo blue waters to live their first few years of life,” noted representatives for the Turtle Center.

They explained that sargasm seaweed rafts can give baby turtles a home, as well as food and shelter in the wild.

Female green sea turtles come back to the beach they were born on or where they were released to lay their eggs. This is why 90 percent of the turtles that lay eggs on Grand Cayman are related to the Turtle Center’s release programmes

This is an indication that the release programme is a resounding success and can be directly credited for taking the known population from one green sea turtle nest in 1999 to now over 600.

However scientists cautioned that 600 nests does not mean that number of turtles.

“We estimate that there are over 150 to 300 nesting females. That’s not that many at all. So we all need to do our part to conserve sea turtles and help them,” said Ms. McGill, who added that by supporting sea turtle conservation, persons are also supporting ocean conservation.

Among the three turtles to be released on Friday morning two were named. These included ‘Bo Bo’, named by the staff at Ernst and Young (one of the sponsors) and ‘Starr’, named by the students from the Joanna Clarke Primary School.

Upon being released onto the beach, the turtles are allowed to make their way into the water unaided. This is so the natal homing process can be solidified to allow them to come back to the same beach to lay their eggs. The turtles use all of their natural instincts to find the beach again.

How the turtles do this is not fully understood. The front running theory is that it is due to magnetic crystals in their brains, which allows them to come back to the beach they were born on.

The tracks made in the sand by the green sea turtles as they make their way down to the water is referred to as ‘batabano’, which is also the name of a popular yearly festival during Cayman’s carnival season.  

Persons in the water were told to clear the way to allow the turtles to make their way into the water during Friday’s event, not only for the turtle’s safety and peace of mind but also because the turtles released are up to 70 pounds and can swim as fast at 22 mph, which can cause quite a bit of damage if the animal is spooked.

The release of the green sea turtles is part of a decades-long practice that has traditionally coincided with the  beginning of the Islands’ Pirates Week Festival and has been a huge draw for residents and visitors, who come to witness the spectacle.

The green sea turtle is a major part of the Cayman Islands’ history and is even featured on the Islands’ coat of arms. The affinity with these creatures for Caymanians has been romanticized through the ages.

In fact, when the Cayman Islands were discovered over 500 years ago, there were thought to be over 4 million green sea turtles in the wild and Christopher Columbus’ memoirs even noted that there were so many of them it was thought they could walk to the shore on their backs.