Protecting the Leatherback and the Northeast Ecological Corridor

Leatherback Festival

Luquillo, Puerto Rico

The leatherback is the largest living turtle and is so distinctive that it is placed in its own separate family, Dermochelys.

All other sea turtles have bony hard plates on their shells (carapace). The leatherback's carapace is slightly flexible and has a rubbery texture. No sharp angle is formed between the carapace and the under-belly (plastron) so a leatherback is somewhat barrel-shaped. Many can grow to be bigger than one too.

The front flippers of a leatherback are longer than in the other marine turtles, even when you take the leatherback's size into account. They can reach 270 cm in adult leatherbacks.

The largest leatherback on record was a male stranded on the West Coast of Wales in 1988. He weighed 916 kg.

Leatherback hatchlings look mostly black when you are glancing down on them, and their flippers are margined in white. Rows of white scales give hatchling leatherbacks the white striping that runs down the length of their backs.

While the Recovery Plan (being a scientific document) makes no mention of this, Turtle Trax would be remiss not to mention it here: hatchling leatherbacks are cute and engaging little animals.

Of considerable interest is that the core body temperature of adults in cold water has been shown to be several degrees Centigrade above the surrounding water. This allows leatherbacks to prosper in ocean regions where other marine reptiles cannot. Fellow Canadian Michael James of Dalhousie University has been training fishermen in eastern Canada to spot leatherbacks, resulting in numerous sightings and an increased awareness that sea turtles inhabit Canadian waters too.

In 1982, Peter Pritchard estimated that 115,000 adult female leatherbacks existed worldwide and that roughly half of them probably were nesting in western Mexico. In recent years, however, the number of nesting leatherbacks has been in an alarming decline.

The theft of eggs for local consumption is not currently a problem in Florida but continues in low levels in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Even though the harvest of turtle eggs is illegal in Puerto Rico, law enforcement efforts have been unsuccessful in deterring it. Historically, the situation was no better on Puerto Rico's smaller islands: e.g. egg poaching has been described as "extensive and unrelenting" (Carr 1978) and a "major problem" (Tucker 1988) on Culebra. Today poaching has been all but eliminated on Culebra as a result of nightly partrol and nest protection programs initiated by FWS on important nesting beaches in 1984.

Leatherbacks are also vulnerable to beach armouring, beach nourishment, artificial lighting, and human encroachment, as described in Threats to Marine Turtles.

Sierra Club and its coalition partners are challenging Puerto Rico Governor Luis Fortuño's proposed cancellation of the "nature reserve" designation held since 2008 by the island's Northeast Ecological Corridor. Covering more than 3,000 acres in the northeast corner of Puerto Rico, the Corridor had been designated as a nature reserve in 2008 by preceding governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá. But on October 30, 2009, Governor

Fortuño removed the designation of nature reserve in order to allow for large-scale, unsustainable development in the area, including more than 4,500 residential and tourist units and four golf courses. The Corridor is one of the most important U.S. nesting grounds for the critically endangered Leatherback, the world's largest sea turtles. More than 50 rare, threatened, endangered and native species have been documented in the Corridor, including the Snowy Plover, the Brown Pelican, the Puerto Rican Boa, the Hawksbill Sea Turtle and the West Indian Manatee.

"Sierra Club and its coalition partners are mobilizing supporters to call on Governor Fortuño to reverse his decision and to approve the Land Use and Management Plan for the Northeast Ecological Corridor Nature Reserve that was presented in public hearings last year and had overwhelming public support," said Angel Sosa, President of the Sierra Club of Puerto Rico. "Governor Fortuño still has a chance to demonstrate his commitment toward the protection and sustainable development of the extraordinary Northeast Ecological Corridor before it's too late."

THE TINGLAR FESTIVAL BEGINS