Protecting Green Turtles in the Arabian Gulf
As the turtle nesting season began each year in Costa Rica, marine biologist Jimena Rodriguez and her team used to camp out on the beaches where Olive Ridley turtles lay their eggs. One night, Rodriguez watched as a turtle tried and failed to stop her nest from collapsing. Using her flashlight, she discovered that the turtle was missing one of her rear flippers. Despite the disability, she spent hours trying to build her nest and lay her eggs. Rodriguez and her team were there to protect the eggs from poachers, but they sprang into action and helped the mama turtle finish the job.
“That night I went to bed feeling so relieved that I could help a desperate mother lay her eggs,” Rodriguez recalled about that night years ago.
Since then, she has shifted her focus to protecting turtles in the Arabian region, which makes up a sizable portion of the green turtle population worldwide. As the Marine Turtle Conservation Manager for Emirates-Wildlife Society, the leading Arabian-based NGO partnered with the World Wildlife Fund, she oversees the Gulf Green Turtle Conservation project. Started in 2010, the initiative looks at closing information gaps on the foraging behavior, dispersal patterns and distribution of two common and threatened sea turtles in the Arabian Gulf: the hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) and the green turtle (Chelonia mydas).
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Photo from AquaBlog.
