Work Package 2 - Phase 2
Sea turtles stranding
Led by WIDECAST
Objective
To strengthen the capacity of marine mammals and sea turtles stranding monitoring networks
In phase 1, this Work Package aimed to strengthen the capacity of marine mammals stranding monitoring networks in the Caribbean region. Its primary objectives were to enhance skills, organisation, cohesion, and equipment within these networks. Furthermore, it sought to validate the effectiveness of the standard protocol and training kit developed by the CARI'MAM network. Workshops were tailored for members (naturalists, scientists, managers) of marine mammals stranding networks actively contributing to the CARI'MAM network stranding group and based in specific areas: Jamaica, Dutch Islands, St Kitts and Nevis, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Suriname.
The workshops, held during October and November 2023, were designed to deliver essential, basic skills including first aid for live animals and optimal practices for data and sample collection from carcasses. Stranding response kits were provided to each location depending on needs, to enhance local preparedness. The aim was long-term capacity building, beyond just disseminating response techniques and towards cultivating a long-term relationship with the wider strandings community. Feedback from workshop participants and recommendations for Phase 2 of the project were shared during the concluding session of CAMAC 1.
Phase 2
Pilot Study - Enhance knowledge and monitoring of human-origin impacts on marine turtles, strengthening capacity of stranding networks in the Wider Caribbean.
Phase 2 focuses on the following objectives:
Strengthen the skills of sea turtle stranding networks, including standardizing protocols for data and sample collection;
Assess and strengthen regional capacity to analyze data and samples collected on stranded animals;
Analyze data and samples in order to enhance knowledge of the cause of mortality and make recommendations for species conservation.
These results will notably be used to feed the analyses of interactions between fisheries
and marine megafauna conducted in the framework of work package 1.
These objectives will be reached by the organisation of 5 different activities :
Developing standardized data sheets, response protocols, and online data entry options
Training in-country networks and purchasing standardized stranding kits
Developing a biobank of available samples for analysis
Enhance public engagement with the development and promotion of outreach material
Enhance regional cooperation, via notably an Internet portal for regional stranding tools and contacts
Work Package 2 Pilot Countries for Implementation are: Barbados,Curaçao, Dominica, Grenada, Puerto Rico, St. Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago.
Benjamin Guichard- OFB
Benjamin Guichard- OFB
What is WIDECAST ?
The Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network (WIDECAST) is a regional coalition of experts affiliated with UNEP’s Caribbean Environment Program for more than three decades.
Comprised of 60+ national coordinators in 45 Wider Caribbean states and territories (including Brazil to the south, Bermuda to the north), the network vision for achieving a sustained recovery of shared, highly migratory sea turtle populations has focused on bringing the best available science to management and conservation, empowering people to make effective use of that science in the policy-making process, and providing a mechanism and a framework for cooperation within and among nations.
WIDECAST
WIDECAST