Editor's Note: Uplifting Successes and Daunting Gaps
By Roderic B. Mast
Mating black (green) turtles in the sea adjacent to Colola, Michoacán, Mexico, photographed as part of a global project led by photographer Tui De Roy for a coffee table book about sea turtles to be published by Princeton University Press in 2024. © Tui De Roy / Roving Tortoise Photos
When COVID travel restrictions lifted, I headed to Pacific Mexico to visit some success stories in sea turtle conservation that have blossomed during my lifetime. These uplifting experiences provided solace, but also reminders of the many challenges ahead for our community.
Playa Escobilla in Oaxaca is the largest nesting aggregation of olive ridleys on Earth. There, while the females waited offshore for their mysterious cues to begin nesting, I met with local turtle folks and helped gather images of hatchling releases, turtles at sea, captive rehabilitating turtles, and the historic turtle slaughterhouse in Mazunte. Right on cue, the arribada began at sunrise on October 31, 2021, hitting its stride just as Mexico was celebrating the colorful Día de los Muertos holiday with candlelit gatherings in cemeteries and flowery street festivals. I saw thousands of nesting females on the beach that first day, yet one of my most vivid memories was the masses of aggressively curious turtles at sea the day prior.
In anticipation of their big event, the ridleys pursued, nudged, and nipped at us like attention-craving puppies. Masked, snorkeled, and face down in a calm, deep blue sea with 60 feet of visibility, my colleagues and I lolled in a pulsing slurry of iridescent jellies, ctenophores, salps, and tunicates, with hundreds of turtles all around us. It felt like I was floating atop a blue soup of life and gazing down into lasagna-layers of turtles, all descending or rising from the depths both near and far. It was an unforgettable scene, backlit by the sun’s rippling “god rays.” Back on the beach I learned that these abundant, seemingly healthy animals are victims of extreme heavy metal contamination and that experts are only beginning to sample turtles globally, leaving daunting gaps in our understanding of this threat.
We also visited the renowned black (green) turtle project in Colola, Michoacán, on a breathtaking beach I had first seen decades ago, when the rookery was fighting for survival. Project head Carlos Delgado reports that this volunteer-led effort registered all-time records of some 80,000 nests and more than 5 million black turtle hatchlings in its 2021–2022 season. I marveled at the commitment of the local community members, yet I wondered how long they could sustain their valiant efforts while the pesos for every meal and gallon of gas for patrol vehicles were such a struggle to acquire. I look forward to returning to Michoacán to help them celebrate 40 years of this remarkable project and to help find solutions about how to keep it thriving.
Lest we think we have sea turtle conservation all figured out, the articles and maps in SWOT Report, vol. 17 on hawksbills and genetics remind us not only about how far we have come in our grasp of sea turtle status on a global scale, but also about the significant gaps that remain. Meanwhile, local solutions abound, like how Puerto Rico has dealt with light pollution, or how a community has come together for turtle conservation in Cabo Verde. Our challenge must be to help others learn from and replicate those examples, while also striving to continually improve our practices, such as by moving away from colonialist practices.
Thanks for being part of our global movement working to simultaneously tackle sea turtle and ocean conservation from the global-down and local-up perspectives.
Roderic B. Mast
Chief Editor
This article originally appeared in SWOT Report, vol. 17 (2022).