of Brazil, Bahia (Groombridge and Luxitioore 1987). Only 10 

 females per year are known to nest at the main locality, at 

 Prahia do Forte. The placement of Brazil in the category of 100- 

 500 females per year would therefore appear to be incorrect. 



Grenada and Jamaica are listed in this same category of 100- 

 500 females nesting annually, on the basis of WATS I data. As 

 mentioned previously, estimates for Grenada were based completely 

 on information from fishermen. This was also the case for 

 Jamaica. Only 40 nesting tracks, unidentified to species, were 

 actually observed in Jamaica during the surveys. These data 

 should be reevaluated at WATS II. 



The Turks & Caicos Islands are placed in the category of 

 100-500 nesting females on the basis of a WATS I estimate 

 developed by John Fletemeyer of 200 + 75 hawksbills. This 

 estimate should also be in parentheses and evaluated with 

 additional data, as it is based on only a 7 -day reconnaissance of 

 the country and relied heavily on fishermen's reports of nesting 

 activity. Only fifteen actual nests were counted in ground 

 surveys and 22 in aerial surveys, including some of the same 

 nests. 



The largest known hawksbill nesting population in the entire 

 Wider Caribbean is in Mexico. The WATS I estimates for this 

 country were 480 females nesting annually in the Gulf of Mexico 

 region and 88 for the coast of Quintana Roo. Two significant 

 nesting areas were discovered in Mexico in 1982, during aerial 

 surveys made in preparation for the WATS I conference. Later in 

 this paper, I will present results of recent nesting censuses of 

 these two colonies. 



Before leaving Table 2, however, two points should be made. 

 First, the largest number of nesting hawksbills attributed to any 

 single country in the entire Wider Caribbean is less than 600 per 

 year. Second, considerable uncertainty is associated with 

 estimates of many of the largest populations. Nearly all 

 countries in the Wider Caribbean are considered to host fewer 

 than 100 nesting females per year. 



Table 3 gives maximum estimates of nesting populations for 

 the entire Wider Caribbean from Table 150 of Groombridge and 

 Luxmoore (1987) . The nine unassigned countries do not contribute 

 to this calculation, but with the important exception of Cuba, 

 are not likely to affect significantly the overall estimate owing 

 to their low nesting densities. The maximum number of nesting 

 females in each category is used for the calculations, including 

 that for each intermediate category. The overall total for the 

 Wider Caribbean using the Groombridge/Luxmoore ranking system is 

 4,975 nesting females. To put this number in perspective, we 

 must consider that some green turtle populations have tens of 

 thousands of turtles nesting annually at a single site. 



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