Turtles Protection Results 2019 & 2020

Summary

This has been a strange season. It appears that climate change is really affecting the coast of Ghana. Local fishermen are telling me that there has been a drastic reduction in local fishing catch. People are unsure of what is causing this. They think it is largely illegal Chinese fishing vessels that scoop up everything in the sea.

The main difficulty with the reduction in the fishing catch is that people turn to wildlife to supplement their diet. This can mean that more turtles are killed for food.

For the first time since we started protecting the turtles, we have seen a very sudden reduction in the number of leatherbacks coming in to lay their eggs. This year we only saw 7 leatherbacks, compared to 53 last year.

This is a very worrying reduction. I don’t know what is causing it. At worst the turtles are being caught in the nets of the large fishing vessels. At best maybe not many are laying this year and we will see plenty next season.

Total turtles found this season:

Leatherbacks:

5 alive

2 killed

Olive Ridley:

41 alive

10 killed

Green Turtle

I alive

Over a thousand eggs protected and numbers of hatchlings helped to the sea. Numerous other hatchlings made their own way to the sea.