Greek loggerheads face dangers

SEVENTH ANNUAL WORKSHOP The Seventh Annual Workshop on Sea Turtle biology and Conservation will be held at Wekiwa Springs State Park, Florida (USA). 25-27 February 1987, sponsored by the Florida Department of Natural Resources. Limited funding is available for lodging and registration costs for students.

Preference will be given to, but not limited to. students whose papers/posters are accepted for presentation. For further information, please contact: Seventh Annual Sea Turtle Workshop, Florida Department of Natural Resources, Bureau of Marine Research, 100 Eighth Avenue S.E., St. Petersburg, Florida 33701-5095 USA, Attn. W. J. Conley.

'HEART’ CHRISTMAS GIFTS AVAILABLE Let HEART help you with your Christmas shopping this year. There are 1.750 Kemps ridley sea turtle hatchlings at the Galveston Laboratory of the National Marine Fisheries Service (USA). You can sponsor a hatchling's food supply as a gift for only $4.00. HEART will send an attractive gift card to the person of your choice explaining that you are sponsoring the food for an endangered sea turtle as his or her Christmas gift. A red heart confirming this gift will be placed In the turtle house at Galveston.

Texas (USA). (The total cost of this gift service is $5.00 per turtle. An additional $3.00 will provide new living quarters.)

HEART will also send a hand-sewn soft-sculpture turtle toy with gift card for $9.00, a 4" X 5" framed oil painting of a hatchling for $8.00, a sturdy beige tote bag with sea turtle pattern for $8.00, or a Raisin Ridley Sea Turtle Cookie Cutter with cookie recipe for $5.00. (Please add $ 1.00 to each item for postage and handling.)

Checks should be made payable to "HEART of PWWS." Send us your Christmas shopping list as soon as possible so we can mail it in time. Send to HEART or PWWS, Box 681231, Houston. TX 77268-1231 USA.

SOME ITEMS STILL AVAILABLE FROM CHELONIA INSTITUTE The Chelonia Institute reports that MTN readers were quick to respond to their offer of free copies of the American Zoologist (Proceedings or the 1979 Symosium on Reproductive Biology of Sea Turtles) and the Proceedings of the Florida and Interregional Conference on Sea Turtles. Unfortunately, for those or you who were not quick to respond to the offer, there are no copies remaining. However, the Institute reports that they still have an additional dozen copies of Technica Pesquera # 167, December 1981, and “plenty of postcards.” Readers wishing to have free copies or these items are encouraged to write to: Ms. Anita Ellis, Assistant to the Director, Chelonia Institute, PO Box 9174, Arlington. VA 22209 USA.

GUEST EDITORIAL : GREEK LOGGERHEADS FACE DANGERS Laganas Bay is located on Zakynthos, one of the seven Ionian Islands of Greece. It is a beautiful bay about 14 km long, bordered with sandy beaches and rocky slopes. It is also the main nesting habitat in the Mediterranean for loggerheads. Today only about half of these benches are used by nesting sea turtles, the other half having been developed for tourism. Laganas' nesting beaches are protected by two Presidential Decrees (issued In 1980 and 1981), as well as by the law that was passed in ratification of the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats. These laws

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have been violated repeatedly. Two lawsuits filed against the Decrees were dismissed this year by the Council or State, the highest Greek court. Several Greek and international societies are striving to protect these turtles, including WWF, Greenpeace, IUCN, the Hellenic Society for the Protection of Nature, the Sea Turtle Protection Society of Greece, as well as international conventions and the EEC. Team or young biologists from the Universities or Athens and Thessaloniki have been working in Laganas over since 1983 tagging turtles, studying disturbances on nesting beaches, and informing tourists.

These Universities have proposed the creation of a protected Marine Park ad Ecological Center in Laganas as well as the expropriation of the main nesting beaches and the protection of the Bay from the sea. The Minister of the Environment visited the Island several months ago. He made proposals and gave detailed plans for the development of the wider Laganas area to include the protection of the sea turtles. He promised to sign the above proposals within two months of his visit after an exchange of opinions with local people and landowners, saying that the people must come first. Laganas and the sea turtles are still waiting.

Since July the situation has become desperate. Hostility from local beach landowners has reached its zenith and such is the rampage of the tourist industry on the island that developers and their bureaucratic helpers apparently will condone any amount of destruction to get rid of the loggerheads.

Before tourist development (1976) some 1400 turtles used to nest in the Bay every year. Now the number Is around 800 and Is dropping. Discotheque noise with the awful low-frequency, far-carrying rythms of drums and bass guitars disturbs nesting turtles and tourists alike until the early hours of the morning. The lure of the bright lights from the discos produces a "false horizon� for nesting turtles and for hatchlings, disorienting both completely and preventing them from reaching the sea. Tourists with torches and flash cameras invade the beach at night disturbing the emergence of the turtles from the sea. Tractors end motorcycles we traversing the beaches night and day. Sea weed released by excessive dynamite fishing Is obstructing the shores.

A new law signed in July by the Minister of Merchant Marine, regarding the regulation of harbors and bays in Zakynthos, does not mention the protection or even the existence or the turtles. On the contrary, this law permits several new sea sports using more speed boats for their performance. This surely means more see turtles were injured by propellers this summer during the peak nesting period.

Daphni, one of the two main nesting beaches, was levelled this summer during the peak nesting period for no apparent reason. As a result, the turtles could hardly nest at all . The local administration has done nothing to stop or to prevent this disaster.

If the Greek government does not hurry to legally protect Laganas Bay, this major habitat for Caretta caretta in Europe may not survive another summer. Greece could then be responsible for one of the worst ecological disasters in Europe.

LILY E. VENISELOS, Governing Council or the Hellenic Society for the Protection or Nature, 3 Merlin St., 10671 Athens, GREECE.

GUEST EDITORIAL : EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION WITH CONSERVATION GROUPS – ARE WE DOING THE JOB? During the past four years we have had several opportunities to observe the efforts of dedicated volunteers on the coastal USA involved with the relocation of sea turtle eggs from endangered areas to hatcheries (other on-the-beach sites and/or incubators). The enthusiasm and concern of the volunteers is overwhelming, but we were distressed by their surprising Ignorance regarding sound conservation practices and normal timing or intogenetic events. As visitors with professional credentials, we were often deluged with questions and requests for advice. Common questions are:

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