St. Maarten Experiencing Busiest Sea Turtle Nesting Season in a Decade
The St. Maarten Nature Foundation was contacted early on Friday morning regarding a large number of sea turtle hatchlings on Dawn Beach. Security Staff at Westin contacted the Nature Foundation after which staff responded to the event and recorded some 95 hatchlings successfully making it to the beach safely.
This marks the fourteenth Sea Turtle Nest that has successfully hatched during the 2013 Sea Turtle Nesting Season, which is higher than records kept at the Nature Foundation going back to 2003. The community has played a key role in assisting the Nature Foundation in managing Turtle Nesting Areas and adhering to the laws regarding the country’s Sea Turtle population.
Sea turtle population numbers have plummeted to dangerously low numbers throughout the past century due to human impacts, bringing many species close to extinction and causing them to be listed as critically endangered. In order to reverse this trend, all sea turtle species are now protected by international laws and treaties as well as local laws. Based on ARTICLE 16 and 17 of the Nature Conservation Ordinance St. Maarten it is illegal to kill, wound, capture, pick-up, have animals that belong to a protected animal species, to directly or indirectly disturb their environment resulting in a physical threat or damage to the fauna or to commit other acts which result in disturbance of the animal. It is also forbidden to upset an animal belonging to a protected species, to disturb damage or destroy its nest, lair, or breeding place, as well as to take the nest of such an animal. Also, it is forbidden to pick-up or to destroy the eggs of animals belonging to a protected species. If Sea Turtles, Turtle Nests, or Hatchlings are found the community is urged to contact the Nature Foundation at 5444267.
The public can see one of the Hatchlings make it to the ocean on the Nature Foundation YouTube page YouTube.com/NFSXM.