For about 18 months, a dedicated team of sea life experts at Fakieh Aquarium nursed Hawksbill turtle — a critically endangered species that has seen its numbers decline by 80% over the last century — that got caught in fisherman’s hooks while he was fishing somewhere south of Jeddah.
The turtle which they named Tutu later returned to perfect health and she tripled weight to more than 50 kilograms.
With a plan to put her back into the Red Sea scheduled for mid-November, their biggest concern is not whether she will be able to cope with the wild life at sea after having been confined to the Aquarium’s tanks.
“What scares us the most is the probability of her mistaking a plastic bag for a jellyfish,” said Jay Bravo who runs the sea life program at the Fakieh Aquarium.
The Hawksbill’s main diet is jelly fish, which look very similar to discarded plastic bags underwater, he explained.
“With Jeddah’s shores so notoriously polluted with plastic bags, it’s a major concern,” he said. “It only takes one plastic bag to kill her.”
This, explains Jamil Attar, Executive Director at Fakieh Leisure and Entertainment Group - Tarfeeh Fakieh, is the first of two concerns about Tutu’s survivability, the other being her getting fished out of the sea again and sold off as food.
Sea turtles, in general, have existed for more than 100 million years, and the Hawksbill, in particular, plays an extremely important role in the Red Sea eco-system, especially as it pertains to the Sea’s world-renowned reefs. Some 1,200 marine species live along the reefs and the extinction of the endangered Hawksbill would have a devastating effect.
By feeding off the jelly fish, sea sponges and sea grass that make the 2000-kilometer reef their home, the Hawksbill plays a vital role in controlling their numbers. This aids in the growth of the reefs which, in turn, provide the diet for many of the fish that humans often put on their dinner tables. These well-fed fish then grow in number and swim out to sea, boosting fish populations so that they are less likely to be affected by fishing. — SG
