Conservation Status 



(1) Current population numbers. 



The only country in the western Atlantic for which a 

 reasonable assessment of population numbers can be made is 

 Surinam (Table 2) . For the other countries, which report olive 

 ridley presence, the data are either too few, too short-term, or 

 non-existent. 



Fretey and Lescure (1979) report on olive ridley nesting, 

 including beach locations, in French Guiana for the period 1977- 

 1979. J. Fretey (pers. comm.) provided some nesting data for 

 French Guiana for the period 1977 through 1986. Although only 

 some of the beaches were surveyed, and then only during part of 

 the season, his findings confirm olive ridley nesting in French 

 Guiana (Table 3) . 



The only accurate population dynamics parameter that can be 

 obtained on nesting females is the number of nests laid per year. 

 That in itself is a monumental task, which requires daily beach 

 patrols, starting well before the nesting season, and stopping 

 well after the end of the season. To use this information to 

 obtain population size estimates becomes then largely a matter of 

 number manipulation and personal judgement based on experience. 



The next step is counting the number of eggs per nest for a 

 large number of nests. In this manner an average number of eggs 

 per nest is calculated. For Surinam the average olive ridley 

 nest has 116 eggs. With an even greater labor-intensive, 

 multiple-year tagging program, an only marginally accurate 

 estimate can be obtained on the number of times a female comes 

 ashore to nest during a particular season, which in Surinam was 

 found to vary from 1.4 to 2.0 times. With this same tagging 

 program, an equally not-too-accurate estimate is made of the 

 number of years before a particular female returns to nest again 

 in this area (interbreeding period). For Surinam this is 1.4 

 years. Tagging techniques are notoriously inefficient for 

 population dynamics data because of the high rate of loss of 

 tags, but it is currently the only method available. From the 

 above data, and by extrapolation, an estimate of the female 

 population can be made. Based on these data, the Surinam olive 

 ridley nesting population declined from 2,000-3,000 females in 

 1967, to 400-500 in 1986 (Table 2). 



The highest number of nests recorded in a given year for 

 Surinam was 3,290 in 1968, while the low point was reached in 

 1986 with only 540 olive ridley nests. Although the number of 

 nests has fluctuated over the years, with a minor upsurge to over 



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