tracking results for Statia sea turtles click here

        

tracking results for Bonaire sea turtles click here

The Netherlands Antilles is party to a number of international agreements which protect sea turtles. Since the early nineteen nineties the Netherlands Antilles ratified the Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife (SPAW) Protocol and in 1999 the Inter-American Convention for the Protection and Conservation of Sea Turtles (IAC), both of which require full protection of sea turtles as well as their habitats and nesting areas. Other treaties ratified by the Netherlands Antilles and which require the protection of sea turtles are the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS, or Bonn Convention and the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES)

The Netherlands Antilles has implemented this requirement to protect sea turtles through its National Nature Conservation Framework Ordinance (Landsverordening Grondslagen Natuurbeheer, PB 1998, 49 and amended in PB 2001, 41), which prohibits their (and other protected species) taking, possession, killing, or disturbance, or commercial trade in them, their eggs, parts or products.

However, this is not enough. In order to effectively protect, and hopefully recover, sea turtle populations in our waters we need to find out more about their exact whereabouts their travel routes, feeding grounds, and nesting beaches, and of course it is necessary to educate people about the need to protect these unique creatures.

To learn more about sea turtles, MINA is supporting two turtle monitoring and tracking projects with funding from the Netherlands through USONA. One in Bonaire, and the other in St. Eustatius. Both projects survey nesting beaches and foraging turtles and both also attach satellite transmitters to selected turtles in order to follow their travels from their nesting beach where they mated or laid eggs, back to their feeding grounds.

The Sea Turtle Conservation Bonaire (STCB) foundation has been studying sea turtles for many years and since 2003 has been tracking them using satellite transmitters .
To see their latest tracking program results click here
For a summary of the tracked migration routes in 2003-2004 click here
For a summary of the tracked migration routes in 2005 click here

On St. Eustatius the National Parks Foundation (STENAPA) also started surveying the nesting beaches of the island a few years back. In 2005, in cooperation with STCB and funded by DCNA they fitted the first female green turtle with a satellite transmitter in August of 2005. To everyone’s surprise this turtle did not swim away from the island after having layed three nests by Sep. 20, but remained around St. Eustatius until the transmitter failed in November 2005. In the 2006 nesting season the tagging program will continue and new turtles will be tagged. To look at the latest tracking results for Statia sea turtles click here