Captive breeding programs for the more valued greens and hawksbills have been generally unsuccessful. The Cayman Islands Turtle Farm, established in 1968 as Mariculture, Ltd., for a time raised greens in tanks for export to commercial processors. In the face of CITES restrictions, it has been converted to a successful educational and tourist attraction. Production of meat (and perhaps eggs) continues on a reduced scale for local island consumption. The U. S. market has been closed since 1978, as, increasingly, are those of other countries (Wood 1991; Fosdick and Fosdick 1994). Provision for trade in farmed turtles continues to be sought, but the pressure against any trading in species whose wild populations are endangered or threatened is substantial. Sea turtle research, including the tagging and release of hatchlings and yearlings, has been an additional feature of the farm’s activities. In recent years, farms have sought to be self-sustaining, independent of wild stocks of eggs or wild breeding turtles. The animals are fed twice daily with a high-protein, pelletized Purina Turtle Chow. They are slaughtered at 4 years of age, at 20 to 30 kilograms.
If sea turtles have a future it seems likely to be in ecotourism rather than gastronomy. They are featured on the flag, seal, currency, and postage stamps of the Cayman Islands, reflecting their close association with the islands and their presumed emotional appeal to potential visitors. Elsewhere, too, as in Florida, in Costa Rica, on the Great Barrier Reef, and on some islands of the Aegean Sea, “turtle watching” is becoming a featured tourist attraction.
The groundswell of concern for the future of sea turtles that has put all but the Australian flatback on the endangered species lists has led to a surge in scientific research on the animals and on the causes and consequences of their decline (Bjorndal 1981; National Research Council 1990). Representative of this effort are the activities of the Marine Turtle Specialty Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (lUCN) and the Marine Turtle Newsletter, a comprehensive quarterly now published in both English and Spanish by the Hubbs-Sea World Research Institute of San Diego, California. So are the symposia on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation, which are annual workshops devoted to these questions.
Realization of the seriousness of the plight of sea turtles, underscored by the CITES trade restrictions, has led to the effective elimination of turtle steaks, turtle soup, and turtle eggs from the tables of all but a handful of tropical developing countries. We are losing, as a consequence, a palatable and nutritious marine food of unique cultural and historical significance. Turtle meat is remarkably lean, with 5 percent of calories in fat compared to 40 for most meats (James Stewart, M. D., personal communication). The eggs are comparable to chicken or duck eggs in protein content and are rich in vitamin A (Simoons 1991: 366-7). Both the world of gastronomy and the lives of many coastal populations of the tropics are being significantly impoverished as turtle and turtle products, a primary source of red meat and protein, are being forced from menus by the excessive pressures of commercialization as well as by the relentless increase in human numbers.
James J. Parsons
World History
