The Bahamas Sea Turtle Conservation Group

Bahamas Sea Turtle Group campaign gaining momentum

September 23, 2008

Nassau, Bahamas - The Bahamas Sea Turtle Conservation Group’s campaign to ban the killing of sea turtles in The Bahamas is gaining momentum, says Jane Mather, president of Advocate for Animal Rights, one of the group’s organizers. According to Mather, “We recently launched a redesigned Internet site (www.saveourseaturtles.com) to support our international advertising and turtle awareness program that is reaching millions of Internet users around the world.”

Our site includes new information about sea turtles, interesting articles, photos showing the inhumane treatment of these magnificent creatures, and links to other sites. Mather says more than 5,000 people have so far signed an online petition (on Care2petition.com) to end the sea turtle killings and nearly 230,000 people have seen our online ad campaign. Bumper stickers are being seen ever more frequently on cars around The Bahamas saying, "Stop the Killing" of sea turtles.

Mather also outlined that press releases are being sent out worldwide and covered on environmental web sites to bring attention to the cruelty that is taking place in The Bahamas. She hopes the information and photos on the new Internet site will inform the public of the cruelty that is taking place in tourist oriented destinations like The Bahamas, and shock people to create a chain reaction leading to a worldwide ban on the killing of sea turtles.

According to Kim Aranha, President of The Bahamas Humane Society, the drive to save sea turtles is gaining momentum. Most recently, the Bahamas National Trust added its voice to the call for a total ban on harvesting sea turtles, and thousands of people have signed a petition demanding swift government action to end the cruelty. In a press release issued on Sept 18, the Bahamas National Trust said it "joins the Bahamas Sea Turtle Conservation Group, The Nature Conservancy, The Bahamas Humane Society, Friends of the Environment and BREEF in the call for a total ban on the harvesting of sea turtles in The Bahamas."

Mather says Bahamas fisheries laws still allow the catching and slaughter of certain turtles, even though the country is a party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which calls on member states to protect all marine turtles as endangered or threatened. According to Mather, “One of the conditions of being a signatory to CITES states that the signing country is obliged to change their current legislation to conform to the obligations of the convention.”

The Bahamas is also a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which commits The Bahamas to avoid the extinction of any more Bahamian species. Nine sea turtles have been rescued from fishermen over the past couple of years, rehabilitated and returned to the sea. But fishermen are still catching turtles knowing that conservationists will buy them in order to release them.

Other organizing members of the Bahamas Sea Turtle Conservation Group include Deborah Krukoski, vice president of Animals Require Kindness (ARK) and Kim Aranha, president of The Bahamas Humane Society. Several other organizations actively support the new group, including Proud Paws, ReEarth, Earth Care, Young Bahamian Marine Scientists, the Freeport Humane Society, Friends of the Environment in Abaco and many more.

The Bahamas Sea Turtle Conservation Group urges all members of the public to visit their web site at www.saveourseaturtles.com and sign the petition urging government to stop the killing of sea turtles in The Bahamas.

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