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Navy to finance study on turtles
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Posted on Mar 26 1999
The US Navy has agreed to fund a project that will study the migratory behavior of green and hawksbill turtles that inhabit two locations, Tinian island in the CNMI and Guam.
Satellite transmitters will be attached to the carapaces of adult female nesting green and hawksbill turtles. The transmissions are expected to last about six months, thereby providing information about the post-nesting behavior and migration routes of these species.
Cooperating agencies in the project are Western Pacific Regional Management Council, Honolulu Laboratory, Guam’s Division of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources and CNMI Division of Fish & Wildlife.
In a related development, the National Marine Fisheries Service in cooperation with Guam DAWR will carry out an assessment of green and hawksbill turtles in Apra Harbor, Sasa Bay and Cocos Lagoon on Guam.
The endangered hawksbill turtle is less abundant of the two nesting sea turtles on Guam and is likewise less commonly observed in the surrounding waters.
On the other hand, the Cocos Lagoon area has a large seagrass area that attracts turtles for foraging, thus it was chosen as the primary green turtle study area on Guam.
During the recently held WESPAC conference, Cinta Kaipat, a resident of Northern Islands, criticized the implementation of conservation laws without taking into consideration the culture of the people.
In Northern Islands, green sea turtles are used for medicine and cooking these species during special occasion has been a practice for many years now.
NMFS and the Fish and Wildlife Service share responsibility for the management and recovery of sea turtles. NMFS sponsored the Pacific Sea Turtle Recovery Implementation Workshop in August 1998 where biologists and managers from CNMI, Guam, American Samoa and Hawaii, met to discuss the research needs in each of their jurisdictions.
Since that workshop, the governments of American Samoa, CNMI and Guam have been developing projects to determine the sea turtle populations in each area.
