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The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico and Central America to the west and southwest, to the north by the Greater Antilles starting with Cuba, to the east by the Lesser Antilles, and to the south by the northern coast of South America. The Gulf of Mexico lies to the northwest. The entire Caribbean Sea area, the numerous islands of the West Indies, and adjacent mainland coastal regions are collectively known as the Caribbean.
Sea turtles, sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhead, Kemp's ridley, and olive ridley. Six of the seven sea turtle species, all but the flatback, are present in U.S. waters, and are listed as endangered and/or threatened under the Endangered Species Act. All but the flatback turtle are listed as threatened with extinction globally on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The flatback turtle is found only in the waters of Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Indonesia.
The leatherback sea turtle, sometimes called the lute turtle, leathery turtle or simply the luth, is the largest of all living turtles and the heaviest non-crocodilian reptile, reaching lengths of up to 2.7 metres and weights of 500 kilograms (1,100 lb). It is the only living species in the genus Dermochelys and family Dermochelyidae. It can easily be differentiated from other modern sea turtles by its lack of a bony shell; instead, its carapace is covered by oily flesh and flexible, leather-like skin, for which it is named. Leatherback turtles have a global range, although there are multiple distinct subpopulations. The species as a whole is considered vulnerable, and some of its subpopulations are critically endangered.
The olive ridley sea turtle, also known commonly as the Pacific ridley sea turtle, is a species of turtle in the family Cheloniidae. The species is the second-smallest and most abundant of all sea turtles found in the world. L. olivacea is found in warm and tropical waters, primarily in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, but also in the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
A hatchery is a facility where eggs are hatched under artificial conditions, especially those of fish, poultry or even turtles. It may be used for ex situ conservation purposes, i.e. to breed rare or endangered species under controlled conditions; alternatively, it may be for economic reasons.
Archibald Fairly Carr Jr. was an American herpetologist, ecologist, and conservationist. He was a Professor of Zoology at the University of Florida and an acclaimed writer on science and nature. He brought attention to the world's declining sea turtle populations due to over-exploitation and habitat loss. Wildlife refuges in Florida and Costa Rica have been named in his honor.
The green sea turtle, also known as the green turtle, black (sea) turtle or Pacific green turtle, is a species of large sea turtle of the family Cheloniidae. It is the only species in the genus Chelonia. Its range extends throughout tropical and subtropical seas around the world, with two distinct populations in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, but it is also found in the Indian Ocean. The common name refers to the usually green fat found beneath its carapace, due to its diet strictly being seagrass, not to the color of its carapace, which is olive to black.
Tortuguero is a village on the Northern Caribbean coast of Costa Rica in the Limón Province. The small village, which can be reached only by boat or airplane, is sustained almost entirely by eco-tourism. The population is estimated at around 1200-1500. Tortuguero can be translated as Land of Turtles, and gave its name to the neighboring Tortuguero National Park. The village is situated on a sand bar island, separated from the mainland by Tortuguero River and bordering the Caribbean Sea. Tortuguero is renowned for its navigable canals that run through the rainforest in the national park, and has such earned the nickname of 'Central America's Amazon'.
Dr. Archie Carr Wildlife Refuge is a wildlife refuge located within the Tortuguero Conservation Area, in the Limón Province of northeastern Costa Rica. The refuge is located north of the village of Tortuguero, between the Barra del Colorado Wildlife Refuge and the Tortuguero National Park. It is named after Dr. Archie Carr, who set up the Caribbean Conservation Corporation in the same area in 1955.
The Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge is part of the United States National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) System, located along a twenty-mile (30 km) section of coastline from Melbourne Beach to Wabasso Beach, Florida, along State Road A1A. The 900 acre (3.6 km2) refuge was established in 1991, to protect the loggerhead and green sea turtles.
In anatomy, the tomium is the sharp cutting edge of the beak of a bird or the bill of a turtle. Sometimes the edge is serrated for tearing through flesh or vegetation.
Ctenosaura similis, commonly known as the black iguana or black spiny-tailed iguana, is an iguanid lizard native to Mexico and Central America. It has been reported in some Colombian islands in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, and has been introduced to the United States in the state of Florida. The largest species in the genus Ctenosaura, it is commonly found in areas such as grasslands and forests.
Marjorie Harris Carr was an American scientist and environmental activist, well known for her conservation work in Florida. She was born in Boston and grew up in southwest Florida, where her parents taught her about native flora and fauna. After earning a Master of Science degree from the University of Florida in 1942, she went on to establish and lead several conservation efforts in the state, including co-founding the Alachua Audubon Society in 1960 and co-founding Florida Defenders of the Environment in 1969. Her work with Florida Defenders of the Environment — which continued until her death in 1997 — to preserve the Ocklawaha River Valley helped halt construction of the Cross Florida Barge Canal, which is now a public conservation and recreation area named in her honor in 1998. She was inducted in the Florida Women's Hall of Fame in 1996. She was married to herpetologist Archie Carr from 1937 until his death in 1987; they had five children.
The hawksbill sea turtle is a critically endangered sea turtle belonging to the family Cheloniidae. It is the only extant species in the genus Eretmochelys. The species has a global distribution that is largely limited to tropical and subtropical marine and estuary ecosystems.
The Windward Road: Adventures of a Naturalist on Remote Caribbean Shores was written by Archie Carr and originally published in 1956. It is an account of Carr's travels around the Caribbean to study sea turtles and their migratory and behavior patterns, especially Kemp's ridley, a species about which little was known at the time. This book led to the formation of The Brotherhood of the Green Turtle, which later became the Caribbean Conservation Corporation, and is now known as the Sea Turtle Conservancy. It was awarded the 1957 John Burroughs Medal for nature writing, which is awarded annually by the American Museum of Natural History. The chapter entitled "The Black Beach", originally published in Mademoiselle, won a 1956 O. Henry Award.
Threats to sea turtles are numerous and have caused many sea turtle species to be endangered. Of the seven extant species of sea turtles, six in the family Cheloniidae and one in the family Dermochelyidae, all are listed on the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species. The list classifies six species of sea turtle as "threatened", two of them as "critically endangered", one as "endangered" and three as "vulnerable". The flatback sea turtle is classified as "data deficient" which means that there is insufficient information available for a proper assessment of conservation status. Although sea turtles usually lay around one hundred eggs at a time, on average only one of the eggs from the nest will survive to adulthood. While many of the things that endanger these hatchlings are natural, such as predators including sharks, raccoons, foxes, and seagulls, many new threats to the sea turtle species are anthropogenic.
The Canadian Organization for Tropical Education and Rainforest Conservation (COTERC) is a registered not-for-profit Canadian-based charity. COTERC was founded in 1991 by Marilyn Cole and Ozzie Teichner, and is based in Pickering, Ontario, Canada. COTERC maintains a close reciprocal relationship in Costa Rica with Caño Palma Biological Station.
Tortuguero National Park is a national park in the Limón Province of Costa Rica. It is situated within the Tortuguero Conservation Area of the northeastern part of the country. Despite its remote location, reachable only by airplane or boat, it is the third-most visited park in Costa Rica. The park has a large variety of biological diversity due to the existence within the reserve of eleven different habitats, including rainforest, mangrove forests, swamps, beaches, and lagoons. Located in a tropical climate, it is very humid, and receives up to 250 inches (6,400 mm) of rain a year.
Karen Anne Bjorndal is an American biologist focusing in nutritional ecology, with an emphasis on vertebrate herbivores and the biology of sea turtles. She is a Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of Florida and Director of the Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research (ACCSTR).
Although the conservation movement developed in Europe in the 18th century, Costa Rica as a country has been heralded its champion in the current times. Costa Rica hosts an astonishing number of species, given its size, having more animal and plant species than the US and Canada combined hosting over 500,000 species of plants and animals. Despite this, Costa Rica is only 250 miles long and 150 miles wide. A widely accepted theory for the origin of this unusual density of species is the free mixing of species from both North and South America occurring on this "inter-oceanic" and "inter-continental" landscape. Preserving the natural environment of this fragile landscape, therefore, has drawn the attention of many international scholars and scientists.
References
- ↑ Lefever, Harry G. (1992). Turtle Bogue: Afro-Caribbean life and culture in a Costa Rican village. Susquehanna University Press. p. 140. ISBN 978-0-945636-23-6.
- ↑ Davis, Frederick Rowe (2007). The man who saved sea turtles: Archie Carr and the origins of conservation biology. Oxford University Press US. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-19-531077-1.
- ↑ Becher, Anne (2000). American environmental leaders: from colonial times to the present. ABC-CLIO. p. 150. ISBN 978-1-57607-162-5.
- ↑ Dickson, Barney; Rosie Cooney (2005). Biodiversity and the precautionary principle: risk and uncertainty in conservation and sustainable use. Earthscan. p. 118. ISBN 978-1-84407-277-4.
- ↑ Davis, Frederick Rowe (2007). The man who saved sea turtles: Archie Carr and the origins of conservation biology. Oxford University Press US. p. 260. ISBN 978-0-19-531077-1.
- ↑ Hopkins, Jack W. (1995). Policymaking for conservation in Latin America: national parks, reserves, and the environment. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-275-95349-2.
- ↑ Troëng, Sebastian; Mangel, Jeff; Kélez, Sheleyla; Meyers, Andy; et al. (22 February 2000). "Report on the 1999 Green Turtle Program at Tortuguero, Costa Rica" (PDF). Caribbean Conservation Corporation and the Ministry of Environment and Energy of Costa Rica. pp. 11, 21–23, 29, 32. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 November 2018. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
