About
Every year marine turtles are recorded in UK & Irish waters, some are here under their own steam (leatherbacks), and others (hard-shelled species), are unintentional visitors being swept from their native warm waters. These hard-shelled vagrant turtles are usually juveniles that cant make headway against strong winds and currents or, adults that are comprimised in some way with perhaps a loss of a flipper.
In 1998 a database was instigated by Marine Environmental Monitoring to record all sightings and strandings, plus any historical records that could be found of marine turtles. Records date back to 1748 and record incidence of by-catch and other harmful activities to these species, this database was simply named TURTLE.
The TURTLE database partly fulfilled the obligation of the UK Government as a signatory to the Rio Convention and the resultant Biodiversity Action Plan, (BAP), Biodiversity: The UK Action Plan (DOE, 1994)), for turtles. It also partly fulfilled the requirements under the EC Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC in relation to marine turtles.
Paragraphs 4.1 and 4.2 of the BAP for turtles states that signatories must: 'Avoid accidental harm to, and by-catch of, marine turtles when present in UK waters' and 'Contribute to international measures for the conservation of marine turtles'. Bycatch in fishing gear is the principal activity responsible for accidental harm to marine turtles. A study to identify those fishing practices and turtle species involved is an essential first step to producing policy to mitigate harmful practices and avoid harm to turtles.
To address paragraph 4.2 we need to be able to understand the value of UK waters to turtles. We are then able to contribute to greater understanding of the relative importance of UK waters to marine turtles to facilitate the implementation of international conservation measures. The establishment of the database is a first step towards achieving this as well as being a specific requirement under paragraph 5.5.1. The database is also needed to fulfil in part, paragraph 5.5.2 that requests amongst other things that all records be passed to a central UK database.
In addition, the database goes some way to addressing Article 12.4 of the Habitats Directive that requires, EU Member States should monitor incidental capture and killing and, in the light of the information gathered, take further research or conservation measures to avoid significant impacts.
