Turtles in Tobago

I’d never thought about leatherback turtles until I went to Tobago, and now I can never forget them. On an empty, moonlit beach I was stunned to see a giant black shape at the water’s edge, coming from the deepest ocean, a creature who dives down to 4,200 feet.

Huge and lumbering, dragging herself from one world to another to lay her precious eggs, this is the only time she ever leaves the sea, a practise that echoes back to their past life on land 150 million years ago. It’s an extraordinary, enchanting sight to see a creature that size come up from the dark abyss of 1000 metres below sea, into an alien environment. Leatherbacks have no natural predators - until the female comes up to lay where she tragically, she meets the most dangerous predator on the planet; the human being.

Round and round, using her flippers, she digs her hole and makes her sacred nest. She grunts softly, tears and mucous pouring out her eyes and down her small pointed head, as she goes into labour and her eggs plop out – as many as 4 per minute. Peter Cox, an environmentalist and turtle expert was on hand with an infra red lamp, to check if she was tagged.

He waved for me to touch her, and feeling immensely privileged I stroked her skin. She felt soft, a bit like stroking your favourite purse. She was the colour of the sea in those places we never get to, grey, dark and murky.

I’m pretty soppy anyway when it comes to creatures and was feeling overwhelmed, tearful, joyous, and wondrous. Finally, when she went back down the slope and into the waves, leaving behind her over 100 eggs covered up and tightly packed. I was so glad she was taking my print back with her to the bottom of the ocean. She certainly left her print on me.

It was one of those seismic moments one has in life and after that I started to find out more about the plight of leatherbacks on the sunny isle of Tobago, with its smiley people and steel bands.

To my absolute horror I discovered that away from the hotels and tourism, on dark, isolated beaches, leatherback turtles are being brutally slaughtered. Their flippers are chopped off with machetes for the meagre amount of wild meat they provide. Alone and trembling, these magnificent, vulnerable creatures are left in agony to bleed to death.

The more efficient slayers wait amongst the trees until a turtle comes up to lay, lift her into a boat, and slaughter her in secret before dumping the carcass in the sea.

Each turtle lays 80 to 120 eggs around five times a season, but blinding lights around the beaches are another death trap for these endangered animals.

The tiny hatchlings – instead of following the moon to the sea - are confused by the beams of artificial light and end up dead in gutters, drains or against hotel walls. Fishermen lay out their nets on the sand instead of reeling them up, and hatchlings are caught up in the ropes and suffocate to death.

This is the tragic plight of an endangered species, in serious decline and hurtling towards extinction.

Leatherback turtles are protected by various international treaties and agreements as well as national laws, but poachers roam free on certain beaches in Tobago, and defy these laws.

It is this that prompted me to launch a campaign, aimed at stopping the slaughter and protecting the habitat that the turtles depend on to lay their eggs. Part of this will involve hiring an undercover agent to film the atrocities, source the turtle meat eaten at weekend harvest festivals, record the damage done by blinding lights on beaches, and the destruction of beach vegetation so vital to the turtles welfare.

You may wonder what has this has to do with life in Britain but turtles come to British waters too, and they are a vital part of our ecology, our past and hopefully our future. By Sharon Feinstein If you are interested in more information, or would like to support the campaign, please go to the Help Turtles button on www.sharonfeinstein.co.uk .