World Wildlife Day is being celebrated every year on 3rd March. In 2020, the theme is “Sustaining all life on Earth”. This encompasses all wild animals and plant species as key components of the world’s biodiversity and their ecosystems whether on land, in oceans, lakes or rivers. Natural resources are vast, but not infinite.

Ecosystems (wildlife and its habitats) are declining at an unsustainable and alarming rate as humans continue to exploit resources faster than they can recover. This endangers the survival of ecosystems and all the wildlife that depend on them.

We, therefore, need to boost and support conservation efforts geared towards halting biodiversity loss before it is too late.

Conservation efforts should align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals One (No Poverty), Twelve (Responsible Consumption and Production), Thirteen (Climate Change), Fourteen (Life Below Water) and Fifteen (Life On Land) committing to improving livelihoods, ensuring sustainable use and empowering citizens in taking action towards species conservation. Each time a species goes extinct, the entire biosphere is made poorer.

We should therefore ensure sustainable use of resources, and exert energy to conserving life both on land and below water to halt biodiversity loss.

The one thing that I do for wildlife is creating awareness through conservation education in school clubs and communities. We get to create opportunities for experiential learning by taking kids to parks, growing trees, organizing camping expeditions and regional conservation educational trips.

Recently, while at Watamu, I was able to visit the Local Ocean Conservation (LOC) center in order to learn about their holistic conservation efforts. We had an Eco-tour at their Marine Information centre to get insights into the marine environment, innovative ways of reusing and recycling of marine waste from coastal clean-ups. We also visited one sick hawksbill turtle that was recovering at the sea turtle rehabilitation centre.

The next morning, Local Ocean Conservation called us to join the Bycatch & Release of five Green Turtles and two Hawksbill Turtles that had been accidentally caught in a local fisherman’s net who notified the office of the occurrence.

Interestingly, turtles need to reach the ocean surface to breathe which makes them susceptible to accidental entanglement in fishing nets and hooks also known as Bycatch.

With increasing fishing activity, Bycatch is on the rise and could greatly contribute to the extinction of the already endangered turtles thus the need for collaboration with the fishermen and Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) in curbing the threat. This collaboration has so far proved to be a success as fishermen have been saving the bycatch instead of illegally selling their products.

Further, turtles face grievous threats including; loss of nesting and feeding habitats due to coastal developments such as sea walls, excessive egg collection, poaching and illegal wildlife trade for their meat, oil, and shells, pollution-causing coral bleach as well as feeding on straws and plastic papers mistaking them for jellyfish.

We helped in assessing, measuring, weighing, tagging and photographing all the seven turtles. This has greatly provided us with incredible insights on turtle behavior and physiology.

The turtles were all in good health so we released them back into the ocean adjacent to the Marine Park. Sick and injured turtles, on the other hand, are monitored and nursed back to health at the Local Ocean Conservation turtle clinic before releasing to the ocean.

Local Ocean Conservation (LOC) is a must-visit to anyone who visits Watamu. You will learn, get a lifetime experience and meet and interact with conservation hero Mr. Fikiri Kiponda of Watamu turtles. Concurrently, you can get to support the conservation efforts of the endangered turtles.

Below are some Amazing Turtles Facts you didn’t know.

• Just like our fingerprint, the pattern on the turtle’s head is unique to each turtle. Scientists can identify each turtle by use of analyzing tools when tags fall off.
• For most turtles species, it is estimated that only 1 out of 1000 turtle hatchlings survive to adulthood due to the many predators that prey on them.
• That plastic while floating resembles jellyfish which are a delicacy to the hawksbill and Leatherbacks turtles resulting in loss of turtles through the ingestion of these plastics.
• Just like your bones, turtle shell is part of its skeleton. The shell is made up of over 50 bones which include its ribcage, spine, and nerves embedded in them and blood supply as well, so if a turtle is injured, it may bleed and feel pain.
• Unlike most air-breathing vertebrates, turtles lack diaphragm for drawing air in and out of their lungs due to their rigid shells. Instead, they move their limbs or neck and utilize other muscles connected to the pleural cavity (the area around the lungs) which aid in breathing.
• Temperature dictates the sex of offsprings, with warmer nests producing more females while cooler nests more males. Position of eggs in a nest can thus dictate their sex #climatechange had negative impacts on turtle nesting on beaches by hatching too many females and few males and thus affecting their reproduction.
• Turtles can drown! Even though turtles can stay underwater for long, they do not have gills and can therefore drown! When sleeping or resting they can stay underwater for hours but when stressed from getting stuck in fishing nets they can drown in a few minutes.
• Turtles always return to the beaches they hatched on before to nest. They are thought to be sensitive to the earth’s magnetic field like a built-in compass and they can detect strength and angles of field lines thus they are able to figure out where exactly they are in the ocean.
• All seven species of sea turtles are considered threatened or endangered. Two are critically endangered (hawksbill and Kemp’s ridley), one is endangered (green and three are threatened (leatherback, olive ridley, and loggerhead). Flatbacks which are only found in Australian waters are listed as data deficient on the IUCN Red List but are listed as endangered in Australia.

Written by Tobias Odhacha

Tobias Odhacha is an ambitious young professional with a keen interest in Biodiversity conservation and ecology. He has a B.Sc. in Natural Resources Management from the University of Eldoret and a Diploma in Environmental Management from Kenya Wildlife Service Training Institute. He enjoys hiking, camping and watching wildlife documentaries.