THEIR meat is considered a delicacy and their eggs an aphrodisiac. That has proved to be a deadly combination for the turtles that live in Jamaican waters. And it shows.

While no specific figures are available for the island’s sea turtle population, it has declined so rapidly in the past two decades or so, according to the National Environmental Planning Agency (NEPA), that turtles are these days found in only about 25 per cent of the historically-known nesting beaches.

So NEPA, and other Jamaican environmentalists, are on a campaign to build awareness about the problem and, hopefully, help in a regeneration of the turtle population.

NEPA has taken the case for the turtles on the road with a series of community seminars, like one held recently in Lionel Town, Clarendon.

“We are concerned that the turtles are imperiled because people say that turtle meat is the sweetest,” says Valerie Dixon, of the Manchester Environmental Protection Agency. “They also try to get their eggs to use in punches. It is supposed to improve their virility.”

Indeed, says Josette La Hee, an environmental officer at NEPA’s biodiversity division, fishermen now report far fewer sightings of turtles than in the 1980s.

There has been, too, a shift in the balance of the species.

According to environmentalists, six of the seven sea turtle species are found in Caribbean waters:

* Hawksbill;

* Green Turtle;

* Loggerhead;

* Leatherback;

* Kemp’s Ridley; and

* Olive Ridley.

In the old days the Green Turtle used to be the most plentiful in Jamaica. But it has been replaced by the Hawksbill.

“We used to have an abundance of Green Turtle,” says Andrea Donaldson, the co-ordinator of NEPA’s biodiversity unit. “They say that you could almost walk on them. Now they are very rare — an infrequent nester, the saying is.”

In fact, that is the observation of Charles Moody, a fisherman for more than 40 years, who used to be an aggressive turtle catcher. He still fishes — but not for turtles. He now helps the NEPA spread the word about preserving the reptiles.

“I used to catch a lot of turtles before but over the years I have learnt a lot about them and I have stopped,” says Moody. “I realised that if we keep destroying them, pretty soon they will be like prehistoric animals to the next few generations.”

While it knows that there is a problem, NEPA is attempting to get a firm handle on its scope. It is trying to build a corps of volunteers to monitor nesting by turtles on their regular beaches — particularly in places like Portland Bight, a bay on Jamaica’s south-eastern shore.

“The turtle is not an easy animal to survey,” says Donaldson.

For instance, a turtle may nest up to four times for a year at 14 to 16 days intervals and it requires having volunteers in place to watch for her return. Outside the tedious processing of tagging, it is also difficult to determine whether it is the same turtle that has returned or if it is a new nester.

The process of determining the turtle population requires a network of dedicated volunteers and informed ‘guesstimate’ of numbers. Follow-up from one year to the other is also crucial.

Turtles nest throughout the year, but it is at this time of the year, summer, they mostly come ashore to lay their eggs and when they face the greatest risks — from the natural sea predators of their hatchlings and from human beings.

“The nesting season is a particularly vulnerable time for the turtles,” explains NEPA’s La Hee. “The female comes ashore to lay her eggs a few weeks after mating has taken place. But she is at risk both from disturbances in the natural environment and those who would try to kill her or get her eggs.”

Turtles are, in fact, a protected species under Jamaica’s Wild Life Protection Act. Hunting of the animal for its meat or the poaching of its eggs are prohibited. Conviction for either could cost a person a year in jail or a fine of $500,000.

But environmentalists stress that while laws, with stiff penalties, are important to help save the turtles, public awareness is equally important.

Turtles need the space and freedom to nest and reproduce, notes La Hee. It is, in the best of time, a treacherous exercise for the turtle, which comes on land and digs a hole to lay her eggs. She then covers them and returns to the sea.

“They may spend two or more hours on shore for the entire nesting process,” explains La Hee. “They deposit between 50 to 200 ping pong ball-shaped eggs. They nest during the warmest months of the year except the Leatherback, which nests in fall and winter.”

Most turtles return to the same nesting beach each year and may nest every two to three years.

Beaches like those in Jamaica would, normally, be ideal nesting sites for temperature helps to determines the sex of hatchlings. If, for instance, the temperature is below 28 degrees Celsius all the hatchlings are male. At 35 degrees Celsius, or warmer, all hatchlings are female. At temperatures between 28 and 35 degrees the sex balance is more likely to be even.

The problem for the turtle population, however, is that if their eggs are found and eaten, there are fewer hatchlings to perpetuate the species. Even when the eggs hatch, hatchlings run a difficult gauntlet of predators to reach to the sea and after that face substantial challenges until maturity.

According to La Hee, human development and physical changes to the environment can also play havoc with turtles. Sometimes when turtles return to a nesting area construction may have changed or totally removed from the beach, leaving the turtle to wander the area.

“Sometimes when persons see the turtle wandering around they will kill it and eat it,” says La Hee.

Yet, once its imprint is on the beach, the turtle keeps coming back — for upwards of 30 years to the same beach on which it was hatched.

“They are a bit like homing pigeons,” explains NEPA’s Donaldson. “They always come back to the same place to nest.”

Another man-made danger faced by turtles is littering — on beaches and in the sea.

“The turtles can’t differentiate between garbage and sea food so it can choke and kill them,” La Hee points out. “So it is important that people don’t disturb sea turtle nests or litter the beaches.”

Turtles are also increasingly victims of drowning after they become ensnared in fishermen’s nets, or are injured or killed by boats.

“They need to watch for turtles at sea,” she says.