Subjects of Vulnerability

Our limits of abusing wildlife is not anymore restricted to terrestrial animals but we have invaded another element; water, to exploit animals and Green Sea Turtles (Chelonia mydas) are a prime example. We are using our intelligence to fool our own species and others as well, many organizations in the name of conservation and preservation try to attract tourists but at the back abuse animals.

The Green Sea Turtle also known as the Ocean’s Lawnmower is a magnificent and eye capturing animal. Seeing a Green Sea Turtle swim brings peace to the heart and joy to the eyes of the viewers. But would it be the same if you see them in a small filthy pool with hundreds and thousands of them stacked on top of each other, fighting for food and air and where they are slaves not only to humans but also the situations in which they are forced to be in?

Today the major perils facing Green Sea Turtles are overharvesting for their eggs, poaching by humans, getting caught in fishing gears, loss of netting beach sites and excessive water pollution in the form of plastic bags in the oceans which is many a times mistook by them as jellyfishes which they find very delicious. Ingesting plastic bags chokes them, which becomes a cause of their death. All of these are the unwelcomed gifts of human beings.

The Cayman Turtle Centre is a conservation facility, a popular tourist destination and the last sea turtle centre located in the West Bay in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands. The facility was established in 1968 by the name of Mariculture Ltd., later called the Cayman Turtle Farm and now called the Cayman Turtle Centre to breed the endangered Green Sea Turtles for commercial purposes.

The conditions in which the green sea turtles are living has gained a critical review from many individuals from all around the globe as well as many international organizations.

Some of the cruelties faced by green sea turtles at the Cayman Sea Turtle Centre are as follows –

1. Hundreds and thousands of Green Sea Turtles cramped up in small and filthy enclosures builds up stress among the turtles. This even inculcates a cannibalistic behaviour forcing them to bite and physically harm the other turtles. In the wild, the green sea turtles swim for long distances upto 1400 miles and dive deep upto 500 feet but in these small and shallow enclosures they are stacked on top of each other which deprives them of all the things they can do in the wild. And since so many turtles are kept in small enclosures they literally need to fight against each other for air and food.

2. Illness from sunblock and mosquito repellents. There is a high probability of the turtles being ill of the sunblock and mosquito repellents applied on the hands of the tourists handling them as they can be toxic to the turtles.

3. Improper and excess handling leads to stress among the Green Sea Turtles which can weaken their immune system. Filthy tank conditions along with a weakened immune system can leave them vulnerable to diseases such as FP (fibropapillomatosis) due to which green sea turtles develop cauliflower-like tumors anywhere on the body or even on the internal organs which overtime can reduce their ability to swim making them an easy prey for their natural predators.

4. Fractures and detached claws. Upon handling hundreds of times a day, the sea turtles panic and they intensively flip their flippers in an attempt to escape which can cause fractures and detached claws. In the wild they behave like this only when they are under attack or when poached by humans.

5. Broken shell. Unable to handle the sea turtles, many a times tourists drop them, this can cause severe injuries including a broken shell which can potentially kill them.

6. Filthy tank conditions and muddy water. Living in such shabby conditions can lead to a spread of diseases among the turtles and can even spread to human beings thus putting everyone at a risk of maybe another super spreading disease. Leaving some of these turtles into the wild in the name of conservation puts the wild population of green sea turtles and other marine animals in a jeopardy. There is no evidence as to if these turtles are well rehabilitated according to the conditions in the wild and as to how many of them actually survive. In 2014 nearly 1300 turtles died over four months from an outbreak of Clostridium, a bacterium more commonly known as a cause of food poisoning. The event came to light after a local journalist filed a public records request. These kinds of disease outbreaks can spread to human populations.

World Animal Protection has turned up numerous other concerns, especially relating to animal welfare and human health, including turtles’ traumatic injuries, overcrowding, and stress related to being handled by tourists. They also pointed out the potential for diseases like E. Coli (Escherichia Coli) and Salmonella found in the turtles’ water to be transferred to people.

“If I had to name a poster child for the worst animal to farm, it’d be sea turtles,” says Neil D’Cruze, a researcher with the London-based non-profit World Animal Protection, which wants to end sea turtle farming. That’s because they’re migratory creatures that can swim more than 1,400 miles and dive up to 500 feet. They’re kept in shallow concrete tanks at the Cayman Turtle Centre. In the wild, sea turtles are solitary, only coming together to mate. At the farm hundreds may be in a single pool at a time.

Brendan Godley, a conservation biologist at the University of Exeter who had conducted research at the centre, said in an email that the Cayman Turtle Centre serves another purpose beyond tourism: to take pressure off wild turtle populations by providing a more sustainable source of turtle meat to the local people. The Turtle Stew is the national dish of the Cayman Islands. In a study he co-authored, he found that half of Cayman islanders who eat turtle meat regularly would likely buy wild turtle meat if captive-bred meat became unavailable. The same study also found that less than 3 percent of the Caymans’ 60,000 people, or about 1,800 of them, say they eat turtle meat on a weekly basis, and about 70 percent say they never eat it. The centre’s Narcisse-Elliott also mentioned the importance of providing Caymanians with captive-bred sea turtle meat to take pressure off wild populations. The centre no longer sells turtle meat at its cafe to tourists, according to a 2014 press release, and its 2016 annual report says the meat is intended for local consumption. The centre, however, sells farmed turtle meat to local restaurants, which in turn offer it to visitors.

“If local restaurants choose to serve turtle…and tourists choose to patronise those restaurants—that is merely their choice in a free society,” the 2014 statement says. But Sea Turtle Conservancy’s Godfrey worries that this farmed meat undermines conservation efforts. “The farm has perpetuated turtles as an item to consume, and they’re not helping to eliminate the international demand for turtle products,” he says. The Cayman Turtle Centre has also called World Animal Protection’s campaign against turtle farming “misleading sensationalism.”

In 2015 Amy Souster, a trainer at the Cayman centre, quit after witnessing what she calls “a heart breaking situation every day.” “All you could see was this frothing bed of turtle heads coming up to the surface,” Souster, who now runs a Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) facility in the U.K., tells National Geographic. “They were constantly fighting to get to the surface to breathe. All the turtles you could see had injuries and bite marks from the others that were stacked on top of each other.”

She also says she came in early one morning to find maintenance workers, charged with draining and refilling the pools with fresh water each day, sprinkling chlorine powder directly on and around the turtles, who weren’t removed from the pools during cleaning time. Each time she raised concerns, she says, she was ignored. “It left me feeling completely helpless and just mortified that this was happening underneath my nose, and there was nothing I could do about,” she says.

The Cayman Turtle Centre needs to understand that their efforts are putting a whole species to a risk. Today the green sea turtle is an endangered species and their population continues to decrease dramatically. The population of nesting females is only 85000 to 90000.

The Cayman Turtle Centre should be converted into a rehabilitation and educational facility with the focal point being conservation of green sea turtles and not attraction of tourists. An example of this can be the Kélonia Observatory for Marine Turtles in Saint-Leu, Réunion. Kélonia is a public aquarium and observatory dedicated for the conservation and education of sea turtles. The Kélonia Observatory for Marine Turtles also participates in many conservation and research programmes to preserve their habitats on Réunion Island and the Indian Ocean. At their own facility they mirror the natural habitat of the sea turtles to ensure that they are jubilant and serene. The Cayman Turtle Centre too has the potential to be a great rehabilitation and educational facility.

Till that to happen, we can play an active part by educating others and to stop giving any more attention and attraction to such organisations. Green Sea Turtles or any other animal on this planet is here to serve a greater purpose than to be used for our self-centered needs. We need to appreciate our wildlife and environment and relish them the way they are and not the we want them to be.