Concern over the plight of Caribbean sea turtles has led to the adoption of protective legislation and conservation initiatives in many of the region’s countries and territories. To gauge the effectiveness of conservation efforts, assessments of the status of sea turtles and their habitats must be ongoing. Long-term surveys of abundance at nesting beaches and foraging grounds can provide managers with critical information, including population trends, patterns of habitat use, and insight into a variety of behavioral and demographic variables.
To aid in this important work, WIDECAST experts recently completed a decadal update of our 2007 atlas of sea turtle nesting beaches, and the 2019 Atlas of Sea Turtle Nesting Habitat for the Wider Caribbean Region led to the creation of a region-wide Index Beach monitoring program. Select a species in the right sidebar to follow the collective population trends estimated by the data collected at these important sites.
Why an “index” program? Because it is impossible to count all nesting turtles on all nesting beaches (or all foraging turtles at all foraging grounds) – so monitoring a sub-sample of habitats, generally the largest nesting colonies in the region, can be useful in evaluating population status and trend region-wide. Index monitoring can serve as a first alert system to changes in population status at biologically relevant scales, and can also help managers interpret finer scale changes at local levels.
These references can help project staff undertake and evaluate sea turtle monitoring programs:
Chacón, D., B. Dick, E. Harrison, L. Sarti M. and M. Solano (Editors). 2008. Manual sobre técnicas de manejo y conservación de las tortugas marinas en playas de anidación de Centroamé Publicado por la Secretaria Pro Tempore de la Convención Interamericana para la Protección y Conservación de las Tortugas Marinas. San José, Costa Rica. 54 pp.
Eckert, K.L., K.A. Bjorndal, F.A. Abreu G. and M.A. Donnelly (Editors). 1999.
Research and Management Techniques for the Conservation of Sea Turtles. IUCN/SSC Marine Turtle Specialist Group Publication No. 4. Washington, D.C. 235 pp. en Español
Eckert, Karen L. and Scott A. Eckert. 2012. Designing Surveys of Abundance at Sea Turtle Nesting Beaches. Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network (WIDECAST) Technical Report No. 15. Ballwin, Missouri. 52 pp.
Kutzari. 2006. Manual Tecnicas de Corrales de Tortugas Marinas. Kutzari, Asociación para el Estudio y Conservación de las Tortugas Marinas, A.C. Mexico City, Mexico. 13 pp.
Stapleton, S.P. and K.L. Eckert. 2008. Community-Based Sea Turtle Research and Conservation in Dominica: A Manual of Recommended Practices. Prepared by the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network (WIDECAST) and the Dominica Sea Turtle Conservation Organization (DomSeTCO), with funding from the U. S. Agency for International Development. WIDECAST Technical Report No. 8. Beaufort, North Carolina. viii + 47 pp. en Español
SWOT Scientific Advisory Board. 2011. The State of the World’s Sea Turtles (SWOT) Minimum Data Standards for Nesting Beach Monitoring, version 1.0. Handbook. 28 pp. en Español
WIDECAST (and other) national Sea Turtle Recovery Action Plans.