Dead leatherback in Port Shoreham underscores need for preservation
Landfill worker Bruce Avery stands beside the carcass of this 370-kilogram leatherback turtle that washed up on the beach in Port Shoreham, Guysborough County, this week. The turtle was transported to the regional waste disposal site, where it awaits its fate on the compost heap.(ALLENA MacDONALD)
Fishermen and other Nova Scotians are playing an important role in the international effort to preserve the leatherback turtle, says a research group leader.
The large turtles, an endangered species, are more often associated with tropical countries, but every spring they travel thousands of kilometres from nesting beaches in South and Central America and the west coast of Africa to feed on the jellyfish in Atlantic Canadian waters.
When a dead leatherback washed up on a beach in Port Shoreham, Guysborough County, earlier this week, the Halifax-based Canadian Sea Turtle Network, which does research on the species, was contacted.
Network executive director Kathleen Martin said in an interview Friday that several of the turtles are found on Nova Scotia beaches each year.
A necropsy, which would determine how the turtle died, was not done on the Port Shoreham turtle because of the stage of decomposition, Ms. Martin said. But a head gash led to the suggestion that a boat propeller might have hit the animal.
The network gathered information on the dead turtle with the help of a local volunteer, who checked the back flippers for ties, photographed and measured the turtle, and noted any scars or distinguishing marks.
Flipper ties, placed by research groups around the world, identify the nesting origins of the animals. The Port Shoreham turtle, which weighed about 370 kilograms, had never been tagged.
"We put tags on them too, when we capture them here in the water off Nova Scotia," Ms. Martin said from a network field site in Neils Harbour, Cape Breton. "There tend to be a lot of turtles in this area at this time of year. I’ve seen three or four of them today."
She emphasized the importance of the role of volunteers in the preservation of the species.
"This is a species that everybody needs to take care of, and any work we do in Canada effects the species internationally," she said.
The network’s research program has the support of more than 500 volunteer fishermen in the province, who call in sightings and help safely disentangle any turtles that get caught in nets. Anyone who sees a leatherback turtle, on shore or in the water, can call the network’s 24-hour hotline at 1-888-729-4667.
( amacdonald@herald.ca)
Landfill worker Bruce Avery stands beside the carcass of this 370-kilogram leatherback turtle that washed up on the beach in Port Shoreham, Guysborough County, this week. The turtle was transported to the regional waste disposal site, where it awaits its fate on the compost heap.(ALLENA MacDONALD)
Fishermen and other Nova Scotians are playing an important role in the international effort to preserve the leatherback turtle, says a research group leader.
The large turtles, an endangered species, are more often associated with tropical countries, but every spring they travel thousands of kilometres from nesting beaches in South and Central America and the west coast of Africa to feed on the jellyfish in Atlantic Canadian waters.
When a dead leatherback washed up on a beach in Port Shoreham, Guysborough County, earlier this week, the Halifax-based Canadian Sea Turtle Network, which does research on the species, was contacted.
Network executive director Kathleen Martin said in an interview Friday that several of the turtles are found on Nova Scotia beaches each year.
A necropsy, which would determine how the turtle died, was not done on the Port Shoreham turtle because of the stage of decomposition, Ms. Martin said. But a head gash led to the suggestion that a boat propeller might have hit the animal.
The network gathered information on the dead turtle with the help of a local volunteer, who checked the back flippers for ties, photographed and measured the turtle, and noted any scars or distinguishing marks.
Flipper ties, placed by research groups around the world, identify the nesting origins of the animals. The Port Shoreham turtle, which weighed about 370 kilograms, had never been tagged.
"We put tags on them too, when we capture them here in the water off Nova Scotia," Ms. Martin said from a network field site in Neils Harbour, Cape Breton. "There tend to be a lot of turtles in this area at this time of year. I’ve seen three or four of them today."
She emphasized the importance of the role of volunteers in the preservation of the species.
"This is a species that everybody needs to take care of, and any work we do in Canada effects the species internationally," she said.
The network’s research program has the support of more than 500 volunteer fishermen in the province, who call in sightings and help safely disentangle any turtles that get caught in nets. Anyone who sees a leatherback turtle, on shore or in the water, can call the network’s 24-hour hotline at 1-888-729-4667.
( amacdonald@herald.ca)