Researchers will use DNA technology to try to stop the illegal poaching of hawsksbill turtles for use in tortoiseshell products.
The population of the critically endangered species has declined by more than 75% in the Pacific Ocean in the past century and a key threat to the species’ survival is illegal trade.
Hawksbills are the only sea turtles hunted for their shells, despite international trade in hawksbill products being banned more than 20 years ago.
Scientists and researchers from WWF and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US have begun a three-year project that will trace tortoiseshell products such as earrings and bracelets sold in market stalls and specialty shops back to where they were poached.
They’ll do this by DNA-testing both products and live turtles throughout the Asia-Pacific region to create a DNA map that will pinpoint where the turtles had come from and identify the hawksbill populations most at risk.
“The major part of the project is looking at how we can trace turtles from sale back to source,” WWF’s Christine Madden Hof, the project manager for the study, said.
“WWF is going to work with multiple partners across the region to work out where the turtles are poached. We’re mapping where they come from to what products they’ve been sold into.”
Similar technology has been used in the past to study the trade in rhino horn.
Hawksbill products are typically found in countries throughout Asia such as China, Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
They are usually poached in waters in the coral triangle, an area that covers waters off Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Timor-Leste and the Solomon Islands.
The project is receiving financial support from the Royal Caribbean cruise line, which WWF is working with to raise awareness among tourists of the illegal trade in tortoiseshell.
Madden Hof said many tourists did not make the connection that a piece of tortoiseshell jewellery had come from a live turtle.
“Many Australians are probably unaware when they’re swimming with a turtle on the Great Barrier Reef that when they visit a market stall in another country that same turtle might be a product on the shelf,” she said.
She said it would take a coordinated effort between countries to recover hawksbill populations and pinpointing hotspots for poaching would allow scientists and conservationists to work with governments to address the issue.
“We know in the Pacific that we’ve lost 75% of their population,” Madden Hof said.
“If we’re not all doing something to recover their population we may lose them forever.”