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Jurassic-era Species on the Way to Extinction |
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By Néfer Muñoz*
The leatherback sea turtle, contemporary of the dinosaurs and survivor of the Ice Age, could disappear forever due to the impacts of human activities.
SAN JOSE - The giant sea turtle, Dermochelys coriacea, which has existed on this planet for 110 million years, is fast on its way to extinction due to the impacts of human activities, reveals a study by U.S.-based scientists to which Tierramérica had access.
Research by experts from the U.S. universities of Indiana and Drexel (Philadelphia) shows that very few members remain of this species, known as the leatherback turtle, whose ancestors shared the Earth with the tyrannosaurus rex and with the mammoth, and survived planetary cataclysms like the Ice Age.
In 1988, 1,362 turtles laid eggs on the Costa Rican beach Playa Grande, the species' main nesting area in the western Pacific. Just three years later, in 2001, only 69 animals did the same.
The scientists have identified four main human threats to the tortoise: plundering of its eggs, tourism, pollution and over-fishing.
"We have no right to let an animal that coexisted with the dinosaurs be lost forever," James Spotila, director of the Drexel University 's Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, told Tierramérica.
Spotila heads a group of biologists who for the last 12 years have been studying these tortoises that are black with white spots, the only sea turtles that do not have a shell but instead a hard leathery covering. Weighing in at 600 kg and measuring around 2.5 meters long, they are the Earth's largest reptiles.
The U.S. experts arrive each year at the small natural oasis of Playa Grande. There they observe the leatherbacks and, through an injection, insert a harmless microchip -- the size of a grain of rice -- into several of the turtles. This allows the scientists to monitor the sea turtles as they navigate thousands of kilometers each year. The species can be found in such diverse habitats as the coasts of Alaska and of southern Africa.
"Each year there is a 25-percent reduction in the number of sea turtles that reproduce here," biologist Frank Paladino, of Indiana University, said in a conversation with Tierramérica.
Spotila and Paladino have joined forces with local researchers and ecologists to launch an international campaign to save the species.
Through the foundation known as the Leatherback Trust they have collected 300,000 dollars in donations from people in the United States and Europe. The aim is to raise three to five million dollars in order to buy part of Playa Grande -- a 1.7-km strip -- and donate it to Costa Rica so that the country can manage the area as a national park.
"The world must realize that not every beach can be exploited for tourism, that there are zones that must be left wild," Mario Boza, member of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), explained to Tierramérica.
Boza, one of the Costa Rican scientists involved in the campaign to save the leatherback, says the species is threatened by a private project to build condominiums on Playa Grande. Although the government halted the project, environmental activists have reported that patches of surrounding forest are being burned, indicating that construction is moving ahead.
Also involved in the leatherback's cause is the local non-governmental Sea Turtle Restoration Project (PRETOMA).
Biologist Randall Arauz, director of PRETOMA, asserted in a conversation with Tierramérica: "If we can save the leatherback turtles, many other species will also be saved."
* Néfer Muñoz is an IPS correspondent.
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