environmental changes that effect the breeding condition and 

 migratory travel of the green turtle needs to be examined. The 

 role of observed shifts in the remigration intervals of 

 individual turtles is not clear either. Limpus (WATS II, this 

 symposium) has suggested that major environmental changes on the 

 foraging grounds caused by global meteorological and 

 oceanographic events are responsible for the observed 

 fluctuations from year to year in the size of Australian green 

 turtle nesting assemblages. 



Surinam Colony 



The WATS I final assessment of the status of the green 

 turtle nesting assemblage was that despite the great fluctuation 

 in size of the colony between years a slight upward trend was 

 discernible (Bacon et al. 1984) . However, Schulz (In: Bacon et 

 al. 1984) did agree that the population was vulnerable and extra 

 mortality in terms of accidental capture by shrimp trawlers was a 

 serious threat to the recovery of the colony. A more recent 

 survey of the nesting beaches by Mohadin and Reichart (WATS II 

 National Report and Report/Data Set) documents that the observed 

 nesting effort has not changed drastically since Schulz 's 

 assessment at WATS I, and appears stable. 



The average number of nests per female per season (3.5) was 

 used to convert nest counts to number of females for that year. 

 A summary of estimated numbers of nesting females per year from 

 Mohadin (WATS II National Report) follows: 



Year Number of females/season 



Recoveries of tagged turtles over the years reveal that 

 Surinam females migrate to foraging grounds off the coast of 

 Ceara, Brazil. Remigration intervals range from 1 to 4 years, 

 but the predominant interval is 2 years. To protect and recover 

 this breeding assemblage from mortality occurring away from the 

 nesting beaches, international agreements and support will be 

 necessary and the adoption of turtle excluder devices (TEDs) for 

 the shrimp trawling fleet is strongly recommended. 



Aves Island, Venezuela. Colony 



In previous years, and up to the time of WATS I, precise 

 data or even estimates of the size of the nesting population were 

 lacking. Our best "guesstimate" was that the size of the total 

 female breeding population was around 800 individuals. The 



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