In September 2009, Christine O’Sullivan from JET visited the Jumby Bay Hawksbill Project in Antigua to learn sea turtle monitoring methods with funding for the World Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals (WSPA). With help from the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) and Melvyn Tennant, who monitors Gibraltar Beach in St. Mary (the only Jamaican turtle nesting beach that was actively being monitored at the time) JET then hosted a sea turtle monitoring workshop for other non-government organizations and academic institutions in September 2009.
In 2010, JET coordinated a sea turtle monitoring project in three parishes: Portland, St. Elizabeth and Westmoreland. Monitoring began in May of the 2011 turtle nesting season. A summary of the project activities and data can be found here:
Learn more about the four sea turtle species commonly found in Jamaican waters: Loggerhead, Leatherback, Hawksbill and Green Sea Turtle.
Sea turtles have roamed the oceans for over 100 million years. They are reptiles – they need air to breathe, they are “cold-blooded” and they lay leathery eggs. All sea turtles have been heavily exploited by humans and all are afforded some degree of legal protection. Find ou more about sea turtles in this issue […]
