30 Jun 2015 Marine Reserve of Santa Luzia, Cabo Verde, Africa Turtles
Implementation of Measures for Conservation of Sea Turtles on the Santa Luzia Island
Project goals go through the conservation of the population of nesting sea turtles in the Marine Reserve of Santa Luzia through a better understanding of their biology and mitigation of natural and human risks.
This project, which is actually the continuation of the work that started since 2011, has the main goal to improve the conservation status of the population of nesting sea turtles in the Marine Protected Area of Santa Luzia, through a better knowledge of the own population (biological data) as well as the mitigation and / or elimination of risk factors such as poaching, destruction of nests by the action of storms (more frequent every year) and excessive predation by the ghost crabs. To ensure the success of the project we will as always, involve not only volunteers (national and International) but also members of own fishing communities (as a form of sensitization). In practice we patrol the beaches daily identifying new nests and relocating those who are in a high risk situation (by the proximity of the sea). During the night the females are marked with subcutaneous devices (which can be identified by other teams work distributed across the Country) and are harvested important biometric data to assess the condition of the population of females. The presence of the working team guarantees that are not captured females or eggs by man.