Our Turtle Protection Team has started work. We have heard that six turtles have already been killed along the coast. I put out an appeal for help, and some men have kindly stepped up to help with some funds. I have sent these funds over and now the Team is hard at work patrolling the coast and protecting nesting females, and their eggs.
Leatherback turtles, which weigh up to 650 kilograms, can eat up to 70% of their body weight in a day. That is a huge amount of jellyfish. As the link below shows, there has been an explosion of the jellyfish population in most of the world’s oceans. Protecting turtles also protects fish.
“Sometimes we’ll catch 4,000 or 5,000 pounds of jellyfish. They spray all around. We get stung,” fisherman Ryan Rogers.
We are finding the same thing off the coast of Ghana. Local fishing nets are pulling in increasing numbers of jellyfish. We highlight this as part of our education effort to encourage people not to kill the turtles. People here can see the direct impact that a jellyfish explosion has on their catch. Local people depend on the fishing, and so keeping turtles alive also keeps down the populations of jellyfish. Jellyfish eat small and baby fish, so have a dramatic effect on the fish population.
Dzita Turtle Protection 