Turtle-Egg Poaching Increases In Mexico

MEXICO CITY - Frenzied poachers have raided the nests of endangered sea turtles along Mexico's Pacific coast, stealing about a million eggs, a startling consequence of the recent rebel uprising.

When members of the self-proclaimed Popular Revolutionary Army, or EPR, attacked police and soldiers in several cities in August, government troops shifted their forces, leaving unguarded a major turtle-nesting site in the state of Oaxaca. The poachers took advantage of the lack of patrols last month, looting more than 10,000 nests on the remote beaches of Escobilla and Morro Ayuta, Mexican environmentalists said.

Witnesses said fights broke out among the thieves as they tried to steal as much as they could. One poacher dug up so many eggs that he couldn't carry them all, leaving 12,000 of them to rot on the beach.

"This is a catastrophe for the sea turtles," said Homero Aridjis, head of the Group of 100, Mexico's leading private environmental organization. "This is the worst looting of turtle eggs in six years."

The poaching of turtle eggs was so severe in 1990 that the federal government, under pressure from environmentalists, agreed to send in soldiers to patrol major nesting sites. Authorities also shut down a turtle slaughterhouse that had permission to kill up to 20,000 turtles per year.

The stealing of eggs and killing of turtles didn't end, but it was sharply reduced - until the military patrols were suspended after the recent rebel attacks. More than 200 poachers, some armed with machetes, swept into Escobilla and Morro Ayuta, digging up eggs and killing some of the female turtles that had arrived to lay eggs, Aridjis said.

The poaching went on for several days and was stopped only after environmentalists complained and local police were dispatched to the nesting sites. Three suspected poachers were arrested in possession of 18,740 eggs. The three were identified as Miguel Lopez Ramirez, 44, Silvano Martinez Gaspar, 35, and Jesus Antonio Santos Silva, 25.

The type of turtle along Oaxaca's coast is the olive ridley. Trading or selling olive ridley turtles, its skins, eggs and shells is banned by international law. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species lists the olive ridley as endangered.

Yet Mexican poachers routinely sell olive ridley eggs and other turtle products along the Pacific coast. Eggs are particularly sought after in the town of Juchitan in Oaxaca. Many locals there consider them to be an aphrodisiac. The eggs can be found in markets, restaurants and cantinas, selling for less than 10 cents each.

It's too early to assess the long-term impact of the looting of the olive ridley nesting sites, said David Godfrey, program director at the Caribbean Conservation Corp., a nonprofit organization in Gainesville, Fla.

"From the turtles' point of view, it's pretty devastating, especially if the looting continues to happen," he said. "But the effects on the turtle population often can't be seen for a while. For many sea turtle species, it may take 30 years for the hatchlings to reach sexual maturity. Until that time, you don't really encounter the turtles. They don't come up on land, and there are very few ways to study their numbers.

"But if there is steady looting, then 25 or 30 years down the road the nesting population crashes and the effects are rapid and dramatic," Godfrey said.