Sea turtle stranding response and rehabilitation program in Uruguay

Populations of the three endangered species (Leatherbacks, Loggerheads and Green turtles) that inhabit Uruguayan coastal waters (in the southwest Atlantic Ocean) are among the most endangered populations in the world. This is why IFAW has joined forces with Karumbé, a group of young students, biologists, veterinarians, teachers and researchers that decided to join forces in 1999 in an effort to preserve the marine resources of Uruguay. To date, the group is integrated by more than 20 dedicated people.

Karumbé patrols an area of 650 km of coast and shallow waters of the Rio de la Plata Estuary and Atlantic Ocean. They provide rapid and effective rescue, give veterinary assistance to turtles in their rehabilitation center and the return nursed animals back to their ocean home.

Aside from protecting endangered populations of sea turtles and their habitat, Karumbé promotes the sustainable development of local fishing communities, looking at alternatives that can reduce the impact of fishing practices on sea turtles. Karumbé uses research, environmental education and conservation work as their principal tools in collaboration with other national and international groups.

In Uruguay, sea turtles face many threats such as incidental capture in fisheries, meat consumption, carapace trade, pathologies, pollution, and a lack of popular knowledge regarding their presence in these waters. Incidental capture appears to be the most important threat to sea turtles in Uruguayan coastal waters, concerning artisanal (gill nets), industrial (trawls), and sport fisheries. The use of carapaces as ornaments and the consumption of meat have also been detected. Turtles suffering cold stunning have been found, and most of them have been successfully rehabilitated and reintroduced to their environment. The presence of marine debris is a big challenge, and has been observed in alive and dead stranded individuals in the last few years.

Over the years, we have added another dimension to the stranding response by building a partnership with IFAW for rehabilitation of stranded turtles. Training wildlife rangers, coastguard personnel and beach lifeguards about sea turtles’ biology and first aids will be a new addition to existing efforts. Emergency hotlines and increased veterinary and rehabilitation infrastructure are to complete the picture with regard to the new developments. These efforts have been further complemented by public awareness programs designed to educate the target audiences about the status of sea turtles and the opportunities to reduce human-induced threats to turtles. In order to involve the network’s members and new key actors in beach surveys and stranded turtle rescue, awareness campaigns powered by communication tools, is to be launched. We consider that the release events are an important tool to raise awareness and engage the society on the sea turtle conservation. For this reason, we invite local communities and mass media to be part of the release events. Through this presentation, we attempt to describe our new direction and novel approaches that have shown promise in engaging target audiences through public communication while simultaneously increasing our capacity to save stranded sea turtles.