Leatherback Turtle f Permochelvs coriacea) 



Status Report of the Leatherback Turtle (Peter 

 C.H. Pritchard) 



Until a few years ago, the leatherback turtle was thought to 

 be a great rarity. In reviewing available information on the 

 nesting of this species in the Atlantic, Carr (1952) found only a 

 scattering of old and vague records. For example, Audubon 

 reported leatherback nesting in the Florida Keys in late summer 

 in the 1830s (Proby 1974) . Garman (1883) , on the other hand, 

 reported leatherback nesting in Florida from December through 

 January. Today, both of these reports seem flawed: the Florida 

 Keys (and also the Dry Tortugas and the Bahamas, both mentioned 

 as possible nesting areas in some of the old literature) are 

 certainly not nesting areas today, and indeed they appear to be 

 geomorphologically unsuitable for such. Similarly, the months of 

 December and January in Florida are probably too cold for any sea 

 turtles to nest at that time. 



Carr also observed that "several old writers mentioned the 

 coast of Brazil" as a leatherback nesting area. We now know that 

 there is indeed some leatherback nesting there, especially in the 

 State of Espirito Santo, although this is nowadays only a minor 

 nesting ground. Wied (1820) reported that leatherbacks, as well 

 as green turtles and loggerheads, nested on the Brazilian coast 

 between the mouths of the Riacho and Mucuri Rivers, and this may 

 be one of the reports to which Carr referred. 



Carr was also informed by several local fishermen, 

 presumably in the 1940s, that leatherback nesting occurred from 

 May to August in Honduras and Nicaragua. However, present-day 

 nesting occurs farther south than this, in Costa Rica and Panama, 

 and hardly at all north of Rio San Juan on the southern border of 

 Nicaragua; moreover, the season is earlier than "May to August," 

 and some confusion of species in these reports appears to have 

 been likely. 



In the light of all this misinformation, it is reassuring to 

 note at least one old account that corresponds to modern 

 information. Reinhardt and Lutken (1862) reported that 

 leatherbacks nest in the Danish West Indies (now the U.S. Virgin 

 Islands) from March to June, with the islands of Tortola (today 

 in the British Virgin Islands) and St. Croix given special 

 mention. 



Carr mentioned a single recent nesting record for the 

 Florida coast, from Flagler Beach, Flagler County, on June 6, 

 1947. Today nesting on the mid-Atlantic coast of Florida occurs 

 every summer, but is not really frequent; Lund (1978) reported 

 that 10-12 females nested annually in Florida, mainly in Palm 

 Beach and Martin Counties; and Harris et al. (1984) reported 18 



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