[Animals] "I'm afraid I'll stop seeing turtles on my beach when I'm old"

[Deii]

Cristian Intriago, 25, leads a project to conserve and monitor the nests of the world's longest-living reptiles in Puerto Cabuyal, Ecuador. Four of the five species that transit Latin America arrive in the country, most at risk of extinction.


 

The first time that Cristian Intriago, 25, saw a turtle, he found it on the shore of his beach bitten by a dog. He was barely 10 years old but he perfectly remembers the feeling it generated in him. “It was huge and beautiful, but they had left it horrible… I felt anger. I needed to know more about her”, he now tells in Puerto Cabuyal, in the coastal Ecuadorian province of Manabí. After seeing her wounded, others arrived who had been caught in trawl nets and thrown overboard. Threats are a constant in the life of these reptiles. "And now, on top of everything, climate change is coming and making everything even more difficult," he laments. "I'm afraid I'll stop seeing turtles on my beach when I'm old."

That boy's anger turned to interest. In the free school where he studied, he discussed the situation he had lived through and his desire to learn more about “these little animals” for whom survival is a huge challenge. According to experts, only one out of every thousand specimens that manage to hatch survive to adulthood, since their journey from the shell to the shore is a real adventure threatened by various predators. The tutors listened to his concerns and began to investigate together with the students. “I learned fascinating things, I was very struck by how the grades defined his life from him so much. I became obsessed with them”, acknowledges the young man. Three years ago, they founded a group for the study, monitoring and protection of turtles and eggs, called Carapazón de Ninos.

Now he is the one who teaches classes at his old school of him. “I'll tell you what I know about olive ridleys, tortoiseshells or greens… These guys are the future. If they're aware that we have a lot of power to change things, they still won't go extinct,” he says. Although he sounds convinced of it, the look of concern does not leave his face from him.
 

The change in temperature complicates everything: from the food they find to the danger of running out of a beach where to nest due to the rise in sea level and the very definition of their sex. The sand in which the turtles lay their eggs acts as an incubator during the 60 days that the process usually lasts. From the 20th to the 40th day, these eggs become thermosensitive and any climatic fluctuation will tip the balance towards one sex or the other. The colder, the more evils will come out. And with warmer temperatures, more females. The ideal would be 29 degrees. This pivotal temperature would allow a balance of almost 50 and 50, with some majority of females; an optimal scenario considering that males mate with several females and these give birth approximately every three years.

Excessive heat would cause the eggs to cook or an excess of females, as is happening in other areas such as Mexico and Central America. In the case of Ecuador, climate change has resulted in very cold spells, rains and strong winds that have caused the turtles to take longer to nest and the fear of the environmental authorities that the litter will leave with hardly any females. “Last year, at this point we already had nine nests, with about 100 eggs each. Now we only have two registered. Most likely, 90% of those born, which will be about ten, will be male.

This not only makes mating difficult. The female turtles lay their eggs on the same shore where they hatched, some 25 years later. “If females are not born here, they will stop arriving. We will stop seeing them”, says Intriago worried.

Scientific evidence seems to predict this trend, although it is too early to be certain. Shaleyla Kelez, lead biologist for WWF Peru's Wildlife program, is cautious. “It still takes time to be clear, but it is undeniable that these thermal changes are going to have consequences,” she narrates by video call. “Relying on the historical resilience of turtles is not enough. Also, keep in mind that they are 'umbrella animals'. When you take care of them and their ecosystems, you are taking care of many other species as well. They are key in the food chain.”

https://elpais.com/america-futura/2022-07-28/me-da-miedo-dejar-de-ver-tortugas-en-mi-playa-cuando-sea-viejito.html