Bycatch turtles of Inhassoro
Interactions between sea turtles and the artisanal beach seine fishery in Inhassoro, Mozambique.
Words and images: Jess Williams
24/6/2019
Mozambique has a huge coastline ~2500km and the majority of the people rely on seafood as their protein source. The diversity of people, cultures, marine habitats and fishing gears bring a charm and a challenge to sustainable fisheries management in Mozambique.
In the town of Inhassoro, Inhambane Province, Southern Mozambique I interviewed the owner this beach seine net about bycatch of turtles, use and trade as well as IUU ( illegal, unregulated and unreported) fishing. He said, "why don't you stay to see what they pull up?" So we waited as a group of 15 men and 1 woman pulled up the net. And there amongst the various seagrass fishes, and the squid, was a large familiar dome shape in the cod-end of the net- a mature female green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas).
The net was long and had twisted a few times, entangling the turtle, leaving her wrapped up in the cod end of the net.
Whether my presence or that of the fisheries enforcement officer who was accompanying me had an influence on the fate of this turtle is not clear. Without asking or arguing the team of fishers began untwisting the net, removing fish and seagrass until we could clearly see the turtle.
Her front flippers were wrapped under the heavy net and the team worked hard to first to flip her over and untangle her in an effort to free the very heavy (~150kg) female turtle.
After a stressful few minutes of twisting and balancing the turtle vertically on her head, she was flipped and the remaining tangled flipper was leveraged out of the net using a large simbiri pole. Although some more finesse could have been used to release her, she had no evidence of cuts or scratches and we then quickly proceeded to assist turning her, to face the downhill slope of the beach and the water.
The beach seine fishers work in shallow seagrass meadows. The meadows act as grazing habitat for a sizeable population of green turtles, that range in size from 40cm to 140 cm. It’s also home to one of the last strongholds for dugongs in the western Indian Ocean, which are considered critically endangered on the IUCN red-list.
In the warmer months, the fishers explained that they could catch 2-3 turtles per cast of the seine net and could be as high as 8-10! But this is not ideal, for the turtle or the fisher.
The fishers complained that the turtles take up the valuable space of the target catch and these beach seine fishers did not consider turtles to be a profitable catch species. They explained that it's widely known that turtles are a protected species in Mozambique and claimed that this prevents people from retaining the bycatch turtles to sell to support livelihood expenses.
You could make the case that this artisanal beach seine fishery in Inhassoro is one the few well-studied and somewhat managed artisanal fisheries in Mozambique. It is somewhat regulated through management actions such as the temporal season, i.e. it only operates over 8 months of the year.
It’s estimated that this beach seine fishery which operates along approximately 50 km stretch of white sandy beach it is estimated that fishery impacts 160- 280 turtles annually (Gove & Magane 1996, Magane et al., 1998). That works out to between 20 - 35 turtles per month in the operational season of the beach seine fishery.
What I saw on this day was one of many frequent interactions between the fishery and the grazing green sea turtles, whom both share the shallow seagrass meadow ecosystem. It was also an example of how things could be, a best-case scenario. With enough awareness and education of the fishers and the owners of the nets and some presence of authorities to discourage retention of bycatch, it seems very plausible this fishery could co-exist with the turtles. In my totally optimistic world, these fishers could greatly assist in contributing to the baseline knowledge of sea turtle ecology in Mozambique through a catch and release monitoring program.
Feeling pleasantly optimistic once the turtle was released and the interviews concluded, it was time to return back to our camp. We were quickly running out of time due to the rapidly approaching high tide. On the way, we pass a section of the beach backed by steep red sandy cliffs, which have deep cracks and crevices from monsoonal rains.
Something familiar catches my eye and I jump out the car to quickly inspect. Wedged into the cracks, along most of the cliffs were bones, warping carapaces and flaking keratin scutes from bycatch green turtles that were not as lucky as the one we had just seen safely released. Indeed it retention of bycatch is likely to be quite a common scenario. Videira (2015) reported > 207 turtle remains in this same area (Inhassoro to Nhamábue).
It’s clear that logistical and financial restraints inhibit regular inspections of this 50 km stretch of beach, an all too common issue for management authorities here in Mozambique.
In remote areas, such as these red cliffs, enforcement presence is rare. Local enforcement officers require 4x4 vehicles (+ fuel) and inspections are constrained to a limited window of time due to the tidal range.
The fishers complained their target catch rates were low. They said their catch rates were limited because the turtles were filling up valuable space in the nets and were making the nets extra heavy to pull back in. The low target catch rates, heavy turtle-filled nets and lack of enforcement all made the incentive to retain bycatch turtles and eat or sell these animals a lot more appealing, despite protection laws.
Based on the size range of carapaces and bones I found in the cliff crevices it seems plausible to suggest that larger mature-size turtles are more likely to be released from nets but small juvenile-sized animals are kept because it is easy to hide the evidence by putting the small turtles either whole or chopped up into a rice sack, at the bottom of a pile of fish or under seagrass wrack dredged up from pulling the seine net in.
While bottom-up community level approaches for enforcement and conservation are essential from the villagers and the CCP, on this day I also witnessed firsthand that some top-down regulatory control is needed. This day reminds me that achieving effective conservation is a balancing act. It requires a balance of bottom-up and top-down management approaches, a balance of quantitative and qualitative research to understand the issues at hand and the most difficult of all, to balance the needs of both people and wild animals to maintain a healthy co-existence for both.
This image captures that moment where your heart feels full. It's the kind of positive outcome that fuels a conservationist to get out of bed each day. The waves wash the sand off her carapace and she disappears seamlessly back into the Indian ocean.
This moment could happen with much greater frequency if coastal communities and CCP (community fishing council) are given the time and resources for capacity building, education programmes, enforcement of turtle protection laws. Conservation is most effective on the ground at the grass-roots level, often all thats needed is a little extra support to spark momentum. What is greatly needed is support for these communities to integrate alternative livelihood options or improve, upscale and diversify their existing livelihood options to allow them to raise their general wellbeing.
There's a long way to go and a lot of people that need to get on board but there are small signs of hope in communities scattered all along the MZ coast. Therefore we continue this work with the hope of Tartarugas para o amanhã (turtles for tomorrow).