least in Mexico and Ecuador. The primary product in 

 international trade is the skin of the flippers, which is used to 

 make ornamental leather. The shell has no commercial value, and 

 the meat, although edible and suitable for local consumption, has 

 never found much international demand. 



In the western Atlantic, the olive ridley has low and 

 possibly fast-disappearing populations. Nesting animals and 

 their eggs are protected in Surinam and French Guiana, but in 

 Guyana the females are often killed and their eggs taken. A more 

 serious source of loss, however, is almost certainly the 

 accidental drowning of individuals in shrimp trawls. The olive 

 ridley frequents the same estuarine and productive marine 

 ecosystems as the shrimp, and it shows no great speed or agility 

 in avoiding trawls. Indeed, the directed catch for this species 

 in the eastern Pacific is, for the most part, based upon animals 

 caught by hand as they float on the surface, seemingly asleep or 

 nearly so. Large numbers of trawlers operate in the waters of 

 the Guianas, Trinidad and eastern Venezuela. 



The Kemp's Ridley ( Lepidochelys kempi ) 



Morphology ; Kemp's ridley may be compared with its congener 

 the olive ridley, from which it differs in being slightly larger 

 and heavier, and with a lower and wider carapace. The carapace 

 width may actually exceed the length in half-grown individuals. 

 The juveniles are of similar coloration to juvenile olive ridleys 

 but the adults are somewhat lighter olive-green on the dorsal 

 surfaces. The head is somewhat larger, and the jaws more 

 strongly ridged and more massive, than those of the olive ridley. 

 The costal scutes almost always number just five pairs, and there 

 are usually five vertebral scutes. 



Distribution ; (1) Foraging areas. Adult Kemp's ridleys 

 are almost or completely restricted to the Gulf of Mexico, where 

 their principal foraging grounds appear to be off the coasts of 

 Louisiana to Alabama in the north, and off the shores of 

 Campeche, Mexico, to the south. The immatures are found 

 principally in the northern Gulf, but are also found quite 

 regularly in sounds, embayments, and other reasonably protected 

 waters of the Atlantic coast of the United States. Indeed, 

 surprising numbers of immature specimens, around 30 cm in length, 

 may be found as far north as Long Island Sound (New York) , and 

 the waters around Cape Cod, where they may be subject to heavy 

 mortality from cold during the winter months. Kemp's ridleys are 

 occasionally found in western Europe also (Ireland, France, 

 etc.), with a single record from Malta (Mediterranean), but some 

 workers feel that such individuals are permanently lost to the 

 breeding population. 



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