Freedivers harvest thousands of sea turtles a year in the Solomon Islands

Richard Hamilton; Simon Vuto; Christopher Brown; Peter Waldie; John Pita; Rose Babaua; Rosalie Masu; Nate Peterson; Christine  Madden Hof; Col Limpus

doi:10.1002/aqc.4050

Back

Freedivers harvest thousands of sea turtles a year in the Solomon Islands

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Freedivers harvest thousands of sea turtles a year in the Solomon Islands

Richard Hamilton, Simon Vuto, Christopher Brown, Peter Waldie, John Pita, Rose Babaua, Rosalie Masu, Nate Peterson, Christine Madden Hof and Col Limpus

Aquatic Conservation, Vol.34(1), pp.1-12

2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/aqc.4050

Files and links (1)

pdf

Aquatic Conservation - 2023 - Hamilton - Freedivers harvest thousands of sea turtles a year in the Solomon Islands1.37 MBDownload View

Published VersionCC BY-NC-ND V4.0, Open Access

Abstract

Chelonia mydas

community monitors

Eretmochelys imbricata

Lepidochelys olivacea

local ecological knowledge

national harvest rates

small-scale fisheries

western Pacific Ocean

wildlife traffickers

Sea turtles are harvested in many small‐scale fisheries (SSFs), but few nations have quantified the impacts that SSFs are having on their sea turtle stocks. This study provides the first assessment on the catch composition, national harvest rates, and long‐term trends in sea turtle catches in the Solomon Islands SSFs. Between October 2016 and May 2018, 10 community monitors located in eight of the nine provinces of the Solomon Islands were trained and employed to work alongside fishers in their respective communities to document, photograph, and georeference the reefs where sea turtles were harvested. Local ecological knowledge (LEK) surveys were then conducted with 32 experienced fishers to infer whether the harvest rates of sea turtles had changed in recent decades. Community monitors recorded information on 1,132 sea turtles that were harvested on 529 fishing trips: 1,119 sea turtles were identified to species level, with harvests consisting of 73.3% ( n = 818) green sea turtles ( Chelonia mydas ), 25.7% hawksbill sea turtles ( n = 291) ( Eretmochelys imbricata ), and 0.9% ( n = 10) olive ridley sea turtles ( Lepidochelys olivacea ). The great majority (92.6%) of sea turtles were captured by night‐time and daytime freedivers who use masks, snorkels, fins, hooks, spears, and underwater flashlights to target a wide range of fauna that inhabit coral reefs. A methodology that accounts for spatial heterogeneity in sea turtle catch rates was used to estimate that the SSFs of the Solomon Islands harvested 11,184 sea turtles per year, with a 95% confidence interval of 5,862–23,717 sea turtles. Experienced freedivers reported a 4.9‐fold decline in sea turtle harvest rates over the past 30 years, indicating that the sea turtle stocks of the Solomon Islands are being overfished. The results and recommendations from this study were integrated into the Solomon Islands National Plan of Action for Marine Turtles 2023–2027.

Details

Title: Freedivers harvest thousands of sea turtles a year in the Solomon Islands
Authors: Richard Hamilton (Corresponding Author) - The Nature Conservancy (Australia)
Simon Vuto (Author) - The Nature Conservancy (Solomon Islands)
Christopher Brown (Author) - University of Tasmania
Peter Waldie (Author) - The Nature Conservancy (Solomon Islands)
John Pita (Author) - The Nature Conservancy (Solomon Islands)
Rose Babaua (Author) - Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Management and Meteorology (Solomon Islands)
Rosalie Masu (Author) - University of Wollongong
Nate Peterson (Author) - The Nature Conservancy (Australia)
Christine Madden Hof (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and Engineering
Col Limpus (Author) - Queensland Government
Publication details: Aquatic Conservation, Vol.34(1), pp.1-12
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Date published: 2024
DOI: 10.1002/aqc.4050
ISSN: 1099-0755; 1052-7613
Copyright note: © 2023 The Authors. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
Grant note: Minimising the Illegal Killing of Elephants and other Endangered Species. Grant Number: 2700005634/1500005160
Organisation Unit: School of Science, Technology and Engineering
Language: English
Record Identifier: 99993598502621
Output Type: Journal article

Metrics

13 Record Views

1 Times Cited - Web of Science

InCites Highlights

These are selected metrics from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool, related to this output

Collaboration types: Domestic collaboration; International collaboration
Web Of Science research areas: Environmental Sciences; Marine & Freshwater Biology; Water Resources

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

Source: InCites