Tricky3 - Goggling Fiji - Baby Hawksbills

4/4/2006 - Baby Hawksbills

There are 75 year-old hawksbill turtles in a tank behind our diveshop. There used to be more but some of them died. Mortality is high in baby sea turtles of any sort as they get munched by just about everything when they are small and crispy - like a marine m&m. Less than 10% make it from their nest to the water and only around 1% of any nest are thought to survive to maturity.

Turtles in Fiji have a tough time - they are prized for their meat and traitionally they are harvested for ceremonial purposes. Last year when the chief of a couple of villages in Ra province died over 100 turtles "sacrificed themselves" for his funeral. They are a rare sight whilst diving here.

I have mixed views on the 'breeding project' they have at this resort. The idea is that they will be kept here until they are big enough to stand a better chance of survival. However, the duration of this period and their general upkeep seems to be somewhat finger-in-the air and more of a PR stunt than a genuine conservation project...

Most of the turtles have developed a white fungus above their eyes. This is being treated with Augmentin and some sort of antibiotic cream. However, in some cases the turtles have munched on each others fungus and in some cases eyes have been fully gouged out.

Their tank is too small and although a new one is being built it is some way away.

Will they be able to forage for their own food after being fed for the period of their captivity?

Will they ever breed even if they are released and survive?

4/4/2006 - Captive Breeding Projects and Animal Rights

Posted by Lissa

In theory I think captive breeding projects are a good thing, but everytime I see programmes about them on television I worry about those poor, trusting, well-fed creatures 'returned' to a hostile enviroment to fend for themselves - even the seals rescued and brought back to health, then returned to the North Sea. And then all those stressful chases we see on television so that wild animals can be sedated and either simply weighed, measured, ringed and generally recorded, or relocated. Is it worth it? Or does it simply satisfy our desire to say 'I am doing something'?

On another aspect of animal welfare, there was a circus near us a week ago on some wasteland near a supermarket. As we drove into the supermaket car park we were greeted by circus protesters with placards 'Hoot if you are on our side'. I didn't. Not that I like circuses. Not that I approve of wild animal acts. If their objection had been to training/bullying lions and tigers into doing tricks, I would probably have hooted. But they were also protesting about acts involving horses and camels! These are animals which through many generations have been bred by man to work for him - they are no longer quite the same as their genuinely wild cousins. Besides the protesters were wimps: it started to rain while we were shopping and they had all gone home by the time we left.

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5/4/2006 - What the fk is that?!

Posted by

There were two circus elephants in a field near where I used to work just outside of Leeds. I thought they had it alright - they had a huge field to run around in, they got fed regularly and they only had to work for a couple of hours a day.

I did a huge double-take the first time I drove past them in a daze!

Edited by rickydazla on 4/4/2006 at 16:33

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