Caymans - Turtle Soup?

[neilstewart]

A friend has just returned from a non diving cayman trip and told
me that she had turtle soup.

Never having been myself perhaps a Caymans veteran might enlighten me before I get judgemental.

Is this a local term for a dish that in fact does not contain turtle? do they farm them? or is it really allowed on an island that advertises itself as the diving mecca of the carribean to eat a wild animal that so many people are trying to protect worldwide?

Neil

 

[CJ's]

Hi Neil,

Unfortunately your friend will have eaten real turtle soup.

Fortunately the turtle meat will have come from our Turtle Farm and not from the wild. Cayman has commercially farmed turtle for around 20-25 years. The farm breeds, hatches and raises Green Turtles the majority of which are used to satisfy the local demand for turtle meat.

Whilst this sounds horrible (I can't bear to visit the farm myself) it does have several beneficial effects:

1) A certain number of 1-2 year old Green turtles are released into the wild each year. At this age they have a far better chance of survival than hatchlings of which maybe 1 in 1,000 will survive to adulthood.

2) It takes pressure off the wild population which, were it not for the supply of meat from the turtle farm, would almost certainly be poached. I'm afraid to say that Cayman's turtling history has left the local populace with a taste for turtle meat.

3) The farm makes most of its income from tours of the facility which hopefully educates visitors in some way, although I personally don't believe that enough effort is put into the educational potential of the farm.

Before you get too critical of this please remember that it was your friend that ate the turtle! If nobody ate turtle then maybe the farm would be able to release more turtles (or even all of them!!) into the wild. It is not only the Caymanians that prolong the demand for turtle meat but the many visitors to our islands who see turtle on a menu and order it!

On the diving side of things I, and many other diving professionals, am involved in the latest turtle saving initiatives which are promoted and organised by our Dept. of the Environment. www.seaturtle.org.

Whilst diving in Grand Cayman you will see turtles on approx 8 out of every 10 dives.

So, come and dive here, see some wild turtles but please don't order turtle from the menu and increase the demand for dead turtles!

Hope this clarifies the situation for you Neil.

CJ.





;-0

 

[neilstewart]

Thanks CJ,

For providing me with an understanding. Its "pie in the sky" to want diving destinations that farm all their foodstuffs, if you took that standpoint you would not dive anywhere. I am greatly relieved that stocks are farmed and wild turtles are not poached, which I assume from that term is illeagal in the caymans?

Jackie told me she tried the soup because it seemed to be the done thing but did say it tasted awful.

Sure will come over sometime when I save up enough cash. Meantime will make do with the Red Sea, Andaman Sea and Indian Ocean. The usual european haunts.

Cheers

Neil

 

[Drew Sailbum]

Turtle is commercially raised at the Cayman Turtle Farm, but don't let that give you the idea that no wild turtle is taken. The turtle meat that ends up in tourist restaurants does come from the farm.

Nonetheless, the Cayman goverment does issue permits for locals to take wild turtle. Two permits were issued to residents of East End this year, and I presume that more permits were issued in the other districts. Permitted catches must be measured and approved by a Dept of Environment officer before slaughter.

I haven't had turtle, but did visit the Turtle Farm. I heard one of the local tour guides (not an employee of the Turtle Farm) loudly telling his group that turtle is an excellent aphrodesiac, and other such B---S---.

 

[ianr33]

When I was in Cayman last year we came across some people digging up a turtle nest.They were biologists working for the government. They packed the eggs and newly hatched turtles in sand filled baggies,looked after them for the day then released them after dark when they apparently have a much better chance of at least making it into the ocean.

We talked about the Turtle Farm and they were less than impressed. Seems that Turtles may well be imprinted to the particular beach that they were born on,if so releasing them from a farm makes no sense at all (they can not return to the farm to lay eggs ) The biologists opinion was basically that the Turtle Farm was a PR exercise rather than a scientifically based breeding effort.

Can not vouch for the truth of the above,just passing on a conversation. Not buying/eating turtle products is obviously the first step to conserving these wonderful creatures.

The Caymans' logo is a peg legged Turtle. Wonder what happened to the missing leg?

 

[dc4bs]

Hmm...

I dunno. If the turtle farm didn't sell meat, what would they use to run the farm?

I'm sure they don't make nearly enough just from tours and the gift shop to support the operation and make a profit.

You can, by the way, 'sponsor' a turtle release at any time. Just pay a fee and pick out your turtle. You can even arrange a guided dive with www.divetech.com to release the turtle yourself.

http://www.turtle.ky/release.htm

Again, I wouldn't think that brings in enough steady income to run the farm on.

There is a very simple rule to animal conservation: If you really want to protect a species, make either a pet or a meal out of it...

If lots of people keep them as pets, the species will flourish: IE dogs, cats, etc...

If lots of people eat them, they will also flourish (but maybe not so much in the wild): IE cows, sheep, etc... The more popular a food they are, the more effort will be put into breeding them and keeping them healthy.

Just throwing in a little 'food for thought'

There are exeptions to this, like whaling but just about every product of whaling can be produced syntheticaly now. But not quite as cheaply...

 

[CJ's]

Craig,

Of course the Turtle Farm does make some money from selling meat but their largest revenue earner by a long way is from selling tickets to tour the facility.

You have obviously visited grand Cayman before and so I'm sure you know that there is a large volume of cruiseshippers that pass through the farm on a daily basis. I don't know the exact figures but we are talking a minimum of 1,000 people and maybe up to 5,000 on a busy cruise-ship day. I believe they charge around US$7-8 per person so do the math!

At US$15 per pound of meat they would have to slaughter a lot more turtles to equal that revenue!

Many places that historically caught turtles on a commercial basis have now put that behind them and realised that a live turtle (wild or farmed) is worth far more money to them than a dead one. I hope that Cayman will become one of these places before long so that the Turtle farm can be really productive both educationally and in terms of releasing significant numbers of turtles (only 35 were released last year!)

CJ.

 

[dc4bs]

35?

That doesn't sound right.

I could believe 35 'sponsored' releases for the year. They release lots of non-sponsored turtles as well. My buddys wife sponsored a turtle about 2 years ago. I believe she named it Beethoven (they have an Affrican gray parrot named Mozart).

What about the storm that wiped out the farm? Or was that 2001? That prety much released ALL the turtles. I noticed a LOT more turtles on the last few trips than there used to be.

They were able to recapture most of the breeders and get going again but there would not have been all that many young turtles of the right age for release for a while. Hmm... Maybe 35 for 2002 isn't all that low after all.

Also, just because 5000 tourists come onto the island does not mean they all go to the turtle farm. Having thought about it some more though, you're probably right that it brings in at least as much or more than the meat sales.

I would guess that a prety small percentage from each ship actualy take the time to make the bus trek up to the turtle farm for the tour.

EDIT: it looks like (based on your prices) that the turtle farm made about one and a half times as much from tourists in 2000 as from meat sales in 1998. The website has rather spotty production info. Throw in another half again for sales from the shop and call it twice as much I guess.

 

[CJ's]

Hi Craig,

You are right, after Hurricane Michelle pretty much wiped out the farm in 2001 the number of releases has dropped dramatically as they no longer have the stock. 35 was the number of turtles released at the annual event last year. They even made people sponsor these this year before any were released and I don't think that any others have been or will be released on the "sponsorship" program until they have their stocks back up.

Trust me, I can't remember the exact figures but I saw the Turtle farm annual report last year and visitor earnings were 3-4 times the earnings from meat sales. This is despite the temporary nature of the farm's set up right now (building work has begun on the new farm).

Unless you have been very lucky the majority of turtles you have seen whilst diving here were Hawksbills. Going on the records I keep I guesstimate that 95% of turtle sitings here are Hawksbills. Bear in mind that all the turtles that are released (or escaped!) are Green and so this does not seem to have affected turtle sitings.
Unfortunately many of the turtles that disappeared during Hurricane Michelle did not escape to sea but ended up in local cooking pots. I'm ashamed to say that many of the people that came to "help" the farm at the time actually came to help themselves!
On a positive note during the summer months we see a few more Green Turtles as the big adults come close to shore to breed and then lay their eggs. Last year was a better year for Green turtle nests here in Grand Cayman than most which I pray will be a continuing trend.

Power to the Turtles!

CJ.

 

[dc4bs]

Hmm...

This would be a hawksbill then? (middle of page):

http://members.aol.com/dc4bs/cayman2.html
Most of the ones I've seen were this type.