Progress For Turtle Monitoring Plans

(ZIZ News) — The St. Kitts Turtle Monitoring Network is moving ahead with plans to set up a base of operations following recent acquisition of property in Keys.

Director of the Monitoring Network, Dr. Kimberly Stewart told ZIZ News that the main goal is to establish a Sea Turtle Interpretive Centre.

“And the plans that we have for that are to have a centralized base where we can actually have our educational activities such as Sea Turtle Camp. Also, to run our eco-tourism out of, because we do hundreds of sea turtle Eco-tours annually,” she said.

She said many persons may not be aware of how valuable sea turtles are to the country; particularly to the fishing industry.

“Our leatherback sea turtles which are the main nesting species that we have in St. Kitts will start arriving in the next week or so for nesting actually eat jellyfish as their primary food source. Jellyfish consume fish larvae so we call them the fisherman’s friend because they actually keep those jellyfish populations in check. That’s helping us have healthy commercial and recreational fishing,” she said.

Dr. Stewart said the Interpretive Centre is expected to be ready in about eight months.