Nevis youths encouraged to join local sea turtle monitoring programme

Young members of the Nevis Turtle Group (L-R) Mr. Jervanito Huggins, his brother Mr. Jaleel Huggins, and Mr. Stedroy Sturge who joined the Nevis Sea Turtle Group being lauded publicly by the Group’s President Mr. Lemuel Pemberton. Looking on are Guests and workers at the Four Seasons Resort, Nevis

CHARLESTOWN NEVIS (July 31, 2012) — President of the Nevis Turtle Group Mr. Lemuel Pemberton, continued to urge persons in particular the island’s youths to join the sea turtle monitoring programme, to ensure that it will carry on.

He made the call on July 23rd, 2012, when the Group which protects sea turtles that come to Nevis to lay eggs made up of mainly local volunteers had tagged with a satellite transmitter and released their first Green sea turtle found on Lovers Beach, in its 11th year of monitoring.

They worked collaboratively with the Sea Turtle Conservancy based in Miami and the Four Seasons Resort, Nevis. So far they have tagged and released a total of 10 Hawksbill sea turtles since the Group’s inception in 2006.

“We would just like to get the message out to everybody you can come out and help us especially on Friday nights when you don’t have to work or go to school the next day and that’s how these guys started. The more help we can get the more hands there the more eyes the better it is,” he said.

Notwithstanding, Mr. Pemberton used the opportunity to laud the efforts of three teenagers who he said had been with the programme for some time which helped to keep the Group active.

“We also have youngsters here who have been working with us for a number of years Jevanito Huggins for the longest while and his brother Jaleel Huggins and also we have Stedroy Sturge who came in about a year and a half ago… Remember they are especially unpaid. Jaleel started when he was 9 years old, Stedroy while he was still in school and also Jervanito and they are still with the programme.

“We have members who were there before, people like Rene Angela Walters and then some persons have dropped out but we have these young persons who have come in and without them we would not have had a Sea Turtle Monitoring programme,” he said.

The Nevis Sea Turtle Group, according to Mr. Pemberton, had been monitoring sea turtles on Nevis now in its 11th year mainly on Lovers Beach, the area between Cades Bay and Cotton Ground and adjacent to the Galley Pot near Miss Junes Cuisine along the coastline through the area near Cliff Dwellers which is known locally as Jacks Bay.

He said, on occasion they have encountered some difficulty with poachers, however, the Group had persevered over the years.