Each year, between March and October, three species of sea turtles (leatherback, green and hawksbill) come to lay eggs on the beaches of Saint-Martin.
Since 2009, the Saint-Martin Nature Reserve has been coordinating a local network of eco-volunteers trained to carry out standardized monitoring of nesting activities on identified sites each year. The main objective of egg-laying monitoring is the annual characterization of the populations of sea turtles nesting on the French territory of Saint-Martin (on and off reserve).
The Nature Reserve organized its first meeting of the season on Friday April 19 in order to organize the monitoring of the laying of eggs in 2019, which counted nearly fifty participants. It was also an opportunity to take stock of the 2018 monitoring.
In 2018, the 133 or so ecovolunteers registered carried out 163 of the 288 patrols on ten sites. 104 traces of spawning activity were identified, including 49 from the previous night, for a success rate of 49%. Green turtles were still the most active with 61 tracks, compared to 35 for hawksbill turtles and none for leatherback turtles. The sites of Baie longue, Baie aux prunes, Baie rouge and Baie Blanche (Tintamare) remain the most frequented. They account for 95% of the traces observed, particularly by green turtles. "This observation, repeated year after year, reaffirms the importance of awareness-raising and monitoring work for the preservation of the quality of nesting sites located outside the reserve and more. particularly in the Lowlands ”indicates Julien Chalifour, head of the scientific center of the Reserve, in the report“ Monitoring of marine turtle spawning in Saint-Martin: Season 2018 ”. For the 2019 laying season, La Réserve wishes to perpetuate its local ecovolunteer network and invites motivated people to contact it (by email: science@rnsm.org or tel: 0690 34 77 10)
(More details on www.soualigapost.com)
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